Silver Star Apple and the Quest for More Money
by JasonEpsilon725
Summary: For some ponies, winning is everything. Always coming out on top, and whatever the losers may say about you... You can't afford to care. But when even gold loses its lustre, one pony must put that life on hold and rediscover what it is to feel. And then 21 Magical Cards start to appear around Equestria. Collect them all! Starring Silver Star Apple, a Unicorn from the Apple Family.
1. 1 - The Silver Spire

_Long Description:_ He arrived in Canterlot four years ago with a sack of bits, good eyes, and a greater vision. Now he's the sixth-richest CEO in Canterlot, the third strongest Grandmaster in the Pro Magical Duelling Circuit, and the most handsome, in his personal opinion. But behind the charming smile of this Gentlepony Adventurer lies a dark secret: When not selling enchanted armours or food imported from alternate worlds in his supermarket chains and fast food stores across Equestria, the well-connected, creative, unforgiving and absolutely brilliant Unicorn known as Silver Star has been running a rather profitable side business: Donning disguises and conning the richest, stupidest, and most corrupt monsters around the world and across the multiverse out of everything they own. Sometimes, the Canterlot Police Department, the secret multiverse-mapping "Map Club", and that law firm he bought will pass the cases they deem "Impossible" to him. Other times, he seeks out his own prey, or the wounded and helpless will come to him for aid. The risk, the rush, the thrill of a good plan executed perfectly, or better yet, salvaged despite unforseen complications... It's incredible.

But when even gold loses its lustre, Silver Star - formerly Star Apple - must make new bonds, reconnect with his family, and embrace friendship. But what does it mean when feelings start to appear in a heart he had believed to be beyond even the warmest touch? And when something is traded away... is it possible to get it back?

In the heart of Ponyville, oblivious to the machinations of Canterlot in his absence, as a disaster of his own making prepares to tear Equestria asunder, Silver Star Apple is going to find out.

But those pleasant slice-of-life adventures are put on hold when a new threat to the world rises. 21 magical cards have hidden themselves around Equestria, and the underground Diamond Dog Empire isn't the only group trying to collect them. Gather them all, and none can match your power. Can Silver and his new best friends find them in time?

This is...

* * *

 **Silver Star Apple and the Search for More Money, Love, The Meaning of Life, and Magical Cards  
**

 **CHAPTER ONE**

* * *

Two nine-foot-tall chocolate-brown doors with glass panes lined with gold were pushed open with a faint screech to reveal a large and warm room that reminded one of an artificially-welcoming yet creatively sterile chain hotel lobby, complete with a colour palette of browns and reds. Two brown earth ponies in matching black suits, black ties, and black glasses held the door open and watched their boss enter the room, a brown Unicorn with a fluffy white mane shaped like whipped cream, a matching tail, a black suit, a brown tie, and purpose and hunger blazing in his light chocolate eyes. Followed by two similarly-dressed Pegasi, Coffee Grounds walked toward the desk in front of them, behind which an extremely bored yellow pony with a pale orange mane and teal eyes was waiting.

Despite the nagging reminder in his mind that all four of his guards were actors he hired on the cheap, as she looked up and uncertainly forced a bright smile, he felt powerful. Like he was on an epic quest, like the ones in those books he read as a foal. This was it, today was his chance to really hit it big. "I'm here to speak with your boss," He said, and didn't wait for a response. Dramatic music roared in his mind as he turned and strode to the elevator and struck the call button with his right forehoof like it had wronged him and his family for generations, and glared at the closed doorway.

He continued to glare, the soft mechanically-triggered bell of the slowly-descending elevator meeting his ears every four seconds, and the dramatic music inside his head grew quieter, and eventually stopped.

The Pegasus at his right flank coughed awkwardly.

The chocolate-brown Unicorn began to wish he knew a powerful time magic spell. Or any powerful spell that would be useful here, really. Perhaps, if he'd spent more time studying and less time reading fiction, he'd have happened upon some excessively powerful spell he could use for a mundane task like this. That was, after all, what magic's main use was: Enhancing the quality of life. Well, that, and fighting monsters. But he didn't want to fight monsters. Or, now that he thought about it, study. He knew a handful of spells, and only one of them would be useful in this scenario. Sure, it seemed excessive, and sure, he'd never used that spell on something this big before, and sure, he wanted to conserve his magical strength in case something went southwest today... But this elevator was annoying, and waiting around was boring.

Coffee's horn lit up with a pale brown glow, like the colour of milk tea, and focused on the elevator. Using the only time spell he knew, his horn's light targeted the pieces that made up this elevator and cast a spell that would have multiplied the speed at which it moved, functioned, and existed by four, if his magic was strong enough. The ringing of the bell increased in pace to one ring every two-and-a-bit seconds, and his horn's glow ceased as he let out an exhausted sigh. That was the best he could manage, but it was better than nothing.

The dramatic music resumed in his mind. He glanced at the secretary, hoping to see an impressed look of shock. Instead, she looked underwhelmed. He ignored her and focused on the dramatic music in his head, which grew even more dramatic as the elevator doors opened with a pneumatic hiss. He stepped inside and turned around, his Earth Pony and Pegasus guards following him into the elevator, which quickly became cramped. The dramatic music stopped once again as he was awkwardly squashed on both sides, the doors closed, and the elevator began a rapid ascent.  
So

me may say his coffee store was less than perfect. Some may say his coffee was less than stellar. Some may say his coffee was less than good. Some may say he was bad at managing a store. And while they were technically right, he didn't care. He didn't need to be the best in the world, because he'd snapped up the best location in town, winning it in a game from his previous owner. Picking the best location and riding on it, living the easy life for as little effort as possible, that was his true talent. Well... His true talent was making coffee, something he didn't really do much of when he was ordering his three workers and one order-taker to make coffee for him, but he was smart, he knew what he was doing. His store was right next to two massive office buildings full of hardworking salaryponies and just as close to Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns as it was close to that other school that advertised itself as the cool even-better alternative for studious ponies that didn't have connections, the school that focused on "Practical magic", The Canterlot Academy of Magical Duelling, ponies from all walks of... Ponies from three walks of life attended his coffee store, and you just couldn't beat an awesome number like three. Sure, his coffee wasn't anything spectacular, but by snapping up the best possible location, his success was guaranteed!

...Or so he'd thought, until this week's bills arrived. In truth, even his brilliant location-selecting skill wasn't enough to save his business from going under. Normally, he'd give up, throw in the towel, and look for some other guaranteed way to make money and make it fast. However, he had planned for everything, even the unlikely event that he failed! Everypony would want his coffee store's location, now that it was officially on the market, and all he had to do was sell it off to the highest bidder and make out like a bandit. If nopony wanted it, he'd have to walk home with his tail between his legs and beg his parents for help and admit that his insufferably smug and oh-so-perfect elder brother was right all along, but what were the odds of that happening?

Coffee Grounds grinned, and gave a quiet foalish giggle to himself and himself alone. He wouldn't walk home in shame, he'd trot home victoriously with enchanted saddlebags full of money floating behind him. He wasn't just going to meet with any pony today, he was going to meet with the powerful, the connected, the elusive, the legendarily and utterly unnecessarily rich Silver Star. Though he'd done his homework on this Unicorn the best he could, the Unicorn had been a complete nopony before he walked into town one day years ago, so his contacts only knew of the rumours. The rumour that he had contracts still valid with beings not of this world, not as a servant of monsters, but as their business partners. The rumour that he had a hoof in every auction, sale, trade, theft, and black market transaction when it came to rare books, magical items, or anything magical and dangerous, yet cared not for things like gold. The rumour that he once challenged an art collector to a game of four-dimensional chess and wagered an absurd amount of money, and won from the collector only the certain priceless piece of art he wanted – some weird "Art" piece with a that was really just a bunch of lines – and forged six copies in an afternoon - despite how the experts believed the piece's lines were too precise to ever be copied by hoof - and sold each one to different collectors while telling each one he was giving them the real one and the others fakes to discourage thefts. The rumour that he was a con artist under the guise of a businesspony that lived for the thrill of breaking those that believed themselves above the masses and the rules and limits that bound them, and the government turned a blind eye because he could do what they could not. The rumour that he was a being without mercy or limit in any sense of the word, a being that made play at being good so he could hunt the corrupt and feed on them in peace.

All absolute nonsense, of course. An all-powerful being would not go around showing his or her power off to potential rivals by ruining some and leaving others around to give warnings, and he doubted anypony with incredible supernatural abilities would waste his time conning rich idiots out of their ill-gotten gains and inheritances when something more profitable and enjoyable like world domination would be on the table. No, this 'Silver Star' was likely a charlatan and fraudster, one with mediocre magic and considerable skill solely in the art of illusion, if that.

The elevator's doors slammed open with magic-enhanced speed and Coffee Grounds dramatically strode out of the room, flanked by his guards, the dramatic music in his head blaring at full blast. Imaginary timpani players were striking their drums faster and faster while imaginary violinists went berserk and imaginary cellists glared jealously and continued to play that same section of eight notes cellists always seemed to be stuck playing. The scents of paper and panicked sweat met the Unicorn's nose as he crossed the room. The top floor was divided up into rows and rows of desks and cubicles, filled with large numbers of busy ponies frantically rushing around as they each tried to finish their heavy workloads before their deadlines while middleponies screamed for them to work faster, knowing they'd all be out if a job if they were even a single second behind schedule.

Coffee Grounds reached the far wall and opened a door, finding a black metal staircast sharply angling upwards and around into the top floor. He reared up, stuck his hooves out to the side, and let his Pegasi guards carry him up the stairs while his Earth Pony guards followed at a brisk trot. Coffee and his Pegasi quickly quickly reached the top, his right guard opening the door for him while he and his left guard entered.

The room was set up with dark browns coating the room, an air of majesty and richness filling the void, an aesthetic ruined by a surprisingly-saturated bright-yellow Pegasus in the center of the room with a short white three-pointed mane and a pair of bulging jet-black saddlebags stuffed full of randomly-shaped junk. He was arguing with a Pegasus with a forest-green body and rose-pink hair seated in a big brown velvet chair too big for him.

"No, YOU don't understand." The yellow Pegasus said firmly, his voice... Northern? "I came here to find Silver, and I'm not leaving here until I give him a piece of my mind!"

"Do we really need to remove you from the-?" The green Pegasus asked wearily.

"Do YOU really need to keep believing you COULD remove me? I didn't come here without more than enough weird magic stuff to take him on, what can you and a few henchmen possibly do to stop me from finding your boss?"

"Silver is not my boss!" The green Pegasus shouted with the air of one that had said that multiple times already, and never once been listened to. "I've never even met the pony! A friend of mine worked with him in the past, he's supposed to come today, to assist in internal matters,"

"Sure, like somepony that's not your secret boss is gonna show up and help you out," He said sarcastically, and grew curious. "What is he even helping you with?"  
The green Pegasus grew furious. "That's a private matter, and I have no reason to tell you anything, just like I have no reason to let you stay here! Now leave!"

"No!" The yellow pony snapped, slamming his right forehoof into the ground. "Not until I get some answers!"

"I don't HAVE any answers!" The green Pegasus insisted, slamming the desk.  
As much as Coffee Grounds wanted to gather information by listening in on whatever it was he'd walked in on, this conversation didn't really seem to be going anywhere any time soon.

"HEY!" Coffee barked in irritation as he glanced around the room, searching for a hidden door or magic remote-viewing sigil or anything that would give him a clue as to what was going on. The yellow Pegasus turned to him in shock like a thug insulted by the hero of a young adult's novel, while the green Pegasus's expression would have far better suited a miserable cashier whose life and joy had long since been worn away by the monotony of an unfulfilling life and the unforgiving sands of time, his smile and enthusiasm gone, to return only when off the job with his friends. "My name is Coffee Grounds. Who are you?"

"Lemon Fields," The yellow Pegasus said, sizing up the new arrival.

"Comet Trail," The green Pegasus said flatly.

"I have a meeting with Silver Star, I was told he'd be here." Coffee explained.

The green Pegasus looked like his hopes for the immediate future just fell through the floor. "Well, he's not here," He said.

"You keep saying that, but I know he's here. He told me he'd be here!" The yellow Pegasus insisted, stamping the ground with a hoof.

"He also told me he'd be here. Is this some kind of trick?" Coffee Grounds wondered.

"Oh, if it's a trick, I swear, I'm gonna find that Unicorn," The yellow Pegasus growled as his wings puffed up. Coffee Grounds stole a quick glance at his Cutie Mark, and saw that it was a big lemon. He resisted the urge to make a lemon joke, or point out that this pony seemed like a complete lemon.

"I'll help you! I was supposed to talk to him about my stores," Coffee Grounds declared.  
The pony with a Lemon for a Cutie Mark paused, and grew dangerously quiet."So what you're saying is... Silver isn't here," He observed.

"Congratulations," The green Pegasus snarked, not even slightly bothered by the Lemon's tone. "You've finally caught up with the rest of ponykind. It only took you half an hour. Do you need a minute to rest after that mental exertion?"  
Absolute fury broke out on the yellow pony's face. "THEN WHERE THE-"

[hr]

In the Business District of Canterlot, in an area full of office buildings and storage containers, there was a building that just didn't belong there. Rather than a rectangular block, it was a long, wide spike of metal over fifteen stories high, hollowed out and with small glass windows on each floor, and it shot into the sky like a giant metal spike waiting for a giant falling adventurer. It was called the Silver Spire. It had been built by one Unicorn, who had bought the office building that once stood here, demolished it, and replaced it with this colossal monument to himself in a self-indulgent act of vanity.

The mysterious Unicorn that had called himself Silver Star had suddenly showed up in Canterlot one day, a sack of bits floating behind him as he strolled right through the front doors of one of the Canterlot headquarters of one of Equestria's finest cabbage buyers, sellers and suppliers. They had deals going on all over Equestria, buying the finest of cabbages from Earth Pony farms and placing them into the kitchens of high-end restaurants across town. Though accounts of what happened vary and rumours about the event range from 'A mind-controlling bird monster with eyes as black and vast and dark as the blackness of space was summoned' to 'He offered them an unreasonably good deal because he knew he'd make more than them soon enough'. Regardless of what actually happened, the facts stated that he left the building an hour later, several thousand bits richer.

With each day, he kept multiplying and multiplying his own funds, making deals and using ponies and doing whatever it took to get ahead in this fast-paced game that anyone could play but few could win, a game where the winner laughed as he or she literally rolled in money while the losers were rendered homeless, faces pressed up against the glass as they stared miserably at the winner like an orphan in a Jarls Chickens book. And to speed up his ascent to the top, he conned. He rarely lied, because he rarely needed to. It was so much more satisfying to make his con his mark's new reality, until it all came crashing down.

In the penthouse suite on the Silver Spire's peak, there was a darkened room, black curtains and metal shutters covering most of the three large windows that would have normally let in all the morning sun you could ask for. Most ponies would have found the darkness ominous or irritating, but it soothed the keen magically-enhanced eyes of the pony in the large cobalt-lined steel chair, who was currently using his time to catch up on some light reading, a small hardback book and a sizeable faux-leatherbound hoof-crafted tome both held in the blazing cobalt glow of his magic.

A cobalt-blue glow erupted around a wide bowl of small pre-unwrapped chocolates on the desk in front of the pony, engulfing the confectionery delight and tossing itself into the mouth of the silver-coated unicorn, his hooves clad in steel shoes with three upwards spikes, like small silver versions of Celestia's shoes. A blend of dark chocolate and strawberry-flavoured cream met his tongue, as did its caramel center, and a smile spread across his face as his horn's blue magic gently gripped a page of the larger book and turned it, revealing more intricately-detailed diagrams of magical spells. He didn't read the ancient language this book was written in, but he could easily read the diagrams, the frequency of certain symbols and words, the weight he gave the quill and each inked letter, and the author's intent. The rest could be pieced together from there as easily as assembling a foal's jigsaw with laughably few pieces.

His eyes drifted toward the other book, a fantasy novel, a trashy and derivative piece of genre fiction. He'd like to say he didn't know why he was still reading this trash, but he knew perfectly well. He wanted to know everything about this book, he wanted to read it all, and then he wanted to lock it away somewhere and never read it again. If he ran into any fans of this book, he wanted to be able to launch himself into a ten-minute rant about this book. He hated this book, but after seventeen chapters of garbage, simply giving up would be like... well, simply giving up.

Two nine-foot-tall steel doors decorated with long pale-blue neon lines, the kind of doors that would look more at home on a nightclub, swung open, bringing in the light of day and illuminating the seated Unicorn. Silver perked up, flung the hardback book to the side like it was contraband, and focused his attention solely on the more respectable magic tome, feigning interest in it, only to get lost in it for real. A Griffon, a focused and lean blue-and-white Panther/Hawklike beast that had her longer head-feathers pulled back into a loose black-banded ponytail with 'bangs' of feathers hanging down the sides of her avian face, which was adorned with a serious frown, stepped into the room and looked at the face of her boss, who didn't seem to notice her.

Rather than the neat, straight, small, precisely combed and sculpted manes of most Unicorns in Canterlot, his was a hairstyle that demanded attention, respect, and hair gel. He had a large and sleek orange mane of windswept hair, and it likely would have looked more at home on a Pegasus. His long mane was brushed back into five points, like the points of a star or the trail of a comet, each curved back and up. Two points were in line with his the top of his neck, two were in line with the center of his head, and a taller piece peaked at the back. A crest at the front that some – himself included – would have referred to as a 'Crown' had formed at the front of his mane, curved like fire, emblazoned with a five-pointed yellow star like the yellow center of a flame.

"Sir, your 6 A.M. is ready."

The Unicorn seemed to purposefully ignore her presence and her words, but in truth, he was simply engrossed in his book.

"Sir?" She repeated.

No response.

She closed her eyes, sucked in a deep breath, and puffed out her chest while widening her stance, as if preparing to pounce. "SILVER!" She snapped.  
Almost instantaneously, Silver's book was closed and slammed to the table in front of him with significant force, the blue glow of his horn flaring like a roaring bonfire as his eyes darted around the room. When he realized there was no threat, the glow of his horn calmed down and levitated his closed book back to him, opening it up as his forelimbs relaxed and hung limply at his sides. "What is it, Aquilla?" The bored tone of a cultured Canterlot Unicorn asked her.

"Your 6 A.M. is ready," She told him. "Coffee Grounds, Lemon Fields, and Comet Trail,"

Unimpressed, the Unicorn returned to his book. "You know what else is ready? This book. It's right in front of me, ready to be finished, and it's more interesting than them."

"When you started reading that book six hours ago, you said, and I quote, 'Get me when it's time to see those three failures and take from them what I can', sir," She pointed out dutifully.

He gave a short chuckle. "Six hours," He said, as if that was something funny now.

"Time distortion field?" She guessed, knowing him and his abilities well enough. "Sir, you really shouldn't use them back-to-back like this, it can't be good for your perception of time,"

"My perception of time is fine, I [i]chose [/i]to spend the past seventeen hours reading while building up speed," He said pointedly.  
That impressed and distracted the bird, who whistled. "Seventeen? You're getting good at those time spells, have you improved your range at all?"

"No, my cubed field is still too small to use on anyone besides myself. It took long enough to get it large enough to cover my whole body, and I [i]still [/i]can't move it more than two meters away from my horn," He said with an irritated frown. "It's irritating, it works on similar principles to my pocket dimension spell, so it should be as simple as changing a number in an equation while keeping it valid, but time is a far more stubborn pet than space,"

"We're getting off topic," She said, facehoofing. ...Facetalons-ing? She rested her face in the talons of her right forelimb for a second. "You just read for seventeen hours, likely without any breaks to stretch your legs, and you probably ate while reading, if you remembered to eat at all. It's official, you have a reading problem,"

He chuckled haughtily, which, she knew, meant he was trying to laugh something off using his "Fancy pony" mask. "I don't have a reading problem. You know the old saying, don't you? 'When reading gets in the way of real life, you read too much. When real life gets in the way of reading, you have a problem'," Silver recited, and chuckled, his magic turning a page. "How absurd! I can't lose track of time if time has no objective meaning any more. As long as my reading problem doesn't cause any problems for me, I don't have a reading problem. I'm fine! I don't have a reading problem, reading has a ME problem. Because if I carry on at this rate, I'm going to run out of good books to read,"

"Sir, you specifically set this three-pony meeting up so it would be a more appealing prospect to Future You than the prospect of finishing whatever book you ended up reading," Aquilla pointed out. "Past You took your present self's reading problem into consideration and accounted for it like he'd account for a thieving fashion designer's egomania and inability to deal with pressure when playing her like a fiddle."

He frowned. "That's right, I did," He reluctantly put the book down on his table, upside down and still open, letting gravity and his own table serve as a bookmark. "Very well. It's time for this experiment to begin!"

"Experiment?" She asked curiously, tilting her head to the side.

"I've been feeling... different lately. Average excitement levels have been down by sixty-three percent, and I'm finding it harder to find sufficiently good reasons to do things besides research magic and read," Silver admitted, and if he wasn't the type to memorize things instead of writing them down, he'd have brought out graphs charting his mental state over the past several weeks. He raised and hooked a forehoof, and his horn lit up with a blazing blue aura, like a dangerously hot flame. His magic brought into this world a large metal mug filled with a cool dark liquid known to some as hot chocolate, topped with a too-wide and too-high spiralling mountain of thick white whipped cream, pink and white marshmallows embedded in the cream like darts in a dartboard. As his hoof held the mug, two thin gold-coloured vials with labels that read 'Sirius-7hE' and 'Alphard-7a2' were summoned forth, which Aquilla eyed distrustfully. The vials poured themselves into his cup and drilled through the cream, meeting the drink and for a moment with a painfully bright golden light that made her flinch and failed to get any reaction from his magically-enhanced eyes. "My recent victories have mattered less and less to me, which is the opposite of how the increasing scale of my recent victories should make me feel, so I'm covering all my bases today. Well, except for the cons, I haven't found any particularly good marks yet, but if this keeps up, I'll choose a name from my B-list."

"Sir, that looks far stronger than your usual daily dose of Magic-Amplifying-"

He reared up with his horn aglow, threw his head and hoof back, and spiralled the drink perfectly into his opened mouth, drinking the potion-enhanced hot cocoa down like he was being encouraged by a both a crowd of partygoers cheering him on and a pony with a stopwatch and book of world records. When he had finished, his magic tore the remaining liquid from his cup, pulling it into a ball and throwing it into his mouth like a piece of chocolate. He slammed his mug onto his table, snapping its handle off and denting the metal desk. "I'm making progress," He whispered, a wide grin spreading on his face, holding still as he pretended he meant to do that.

"You're progressing toward [i]something[/i]," She muttered to herself, and then said to Silver, "We should go to that meeting, unless you want to show up fashionably late for dramatic effect,"

"We're going," Silver said, his horn lighting up with a blazing blue aura. Without needing to turn his head, his magic targeted the ground beside him and flashed with a blue light, burning a circle into the ground about as wide as he was long, a circle with the hollow skeletal frame of a ten-pointed star in the center. His horn still alight, the blinds covering his window shattered apart like glass, the fabric pieces falling to the ground in perfect scalene triangles, revealing a whole wall covered in massive metal-reinforced windows, sunlight streaming into the room. Rectangular cracks formed in the wall as his horn blazed, and a part of the wall double his size opened outwards like a set of double doors, leading out into a sheer drop outside. "Aquilla, follow me,"

"You aren't going to teleport us?" She wondered.

He got out of his chair, turned around, and faced the hole he'd made in his wall. An orange crystal shaped like a tiny perfect pearl emerged from his shoes and became embedded in the front of each one. "I didn't spend four hours of what could have been light reading time last night researching esoteric momentum magic to upgrade these shoes of mine to just teleport from place to place. One of the contributing factors to my current state of mind may be a regrettable lack of physical movement,"  
She knew what this meant, and grinned. "Yes. YES!"

He raised his right forehoof, his horn flashing blue, and a large orange piece of glass appeared in his hoof. It was shaped like a five-pointed star, each point sloped like a triangular prism, perfect for keeping wind and any dust out of his eyes. He placed it atop his muzzle, in front of his eyes, and despite lacking any sort of hooks or glue, the enchanted glasses stayed there, as if they knew better than to fall off. Despite its shape, looking through it was as easy as looking through an ordinary pair of jade sunglasses. Thank you, Minor Enchantments For Seemingly Small Enhancements.

A wide smile on her face, she let out a soft and anticipatory hawklike screech. "Skriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii..,"

He suddenly stopped, got up, and his horn lit up as quadruplet orange auras flared out from his shoes and covered his whole body. He conjured some metal balls the size of baseballs, and dropped them into his orange aura, where they stayed suspended, rotating slowly.

"What are you doing?" Aquilla asked, disappointed, her extended wings slowly lowering.

"Accelerating my de facto speed," Silver began to explain, pointing his head towards the doorway, straightening his neck, and aiming his head towards an office building on the other side of the road like he was aiming a cannon, aiming for the sections of the wall between the windows. "Simply put, the maximum speed available to me, when I tap into the momentum this enchantment has absorbed. Of course, it isn't the speed I'll actually travel at, I'll hold back enough momentum to spend on mid-air flight corrections, energy for enhanced mobility spells, and so on."

"Didn't you just finish building up speed for 12 hours?" Aquilla asked.

He kept his body still, pointed straight ahead, like he was waiting for something. "Yes, but you can never have too much of anything. I'd say my launching speed is at around... fifty right now,"

"Fifty what?" Aquilla asked curiously.

"Fifty speed," Silver answered bluntly. "It's a measurement system I came up with to simplify both the act of teleportation and momentum-based magic in general, converting it into a more standard system of speed measurement would take effort I don't currently feel like expending. In two hours, remind me to give that measurement a better name,"

"Yes, Sir," She said, nodding once. "So, how much faster are these shoes going to make you?"

"You'll see," He said, and his orange aura retracted, allowing the steel balls fall around him. "Try to keep up."

She crouched down, ready to pounce, and spread her wings.

He didn't crouch or jump, or move his body in any way. One moment, he was right beside her, and the next, he wasn't, like a... like a... She didn't even have any words for how shockingly fast he had moved and how suddenly he accelerated from a standing position. Even a slingshot, or an arrow fired from a bow, would have made some kind of sound or indication of what had happened, but she realized why he had challenged her to keep up. She didn't even see him move from one place to another, he was just suddenly... There, on the other side of the street, backflipping off the side of that building and glowing orange as he built up speed again.

Like a firework taking off, the falling Unicorn's absorbed momentum launched himself up and to the side, twisting around in the air and suddenly absorbing his own momentum to fall directly down and land perfectly on the extended stone balcony of a building next to his Silver Spire. He began running across the building's balcony, forehooves and rear hooves moving in pairs like the limbs of a fox, until he got to a grey stone statue of what he assumed was the Earth Pony owner. He leapt up to its head, his forehooves pulling him forwards so his rear hooves could find purchase on it and leap off it, towards the next building, which had a flat roof. Soaring up through the air and almost landing on it, he swung his forehooves down onto it and flipped his hindlegs up, his whole body spinning up and landing on the roof, running forwards to keep his momentum.

Instead of continuing to run straight ahead, he turned and leapt towards a nearby lamppost, hooking his fetlocks around it and swinging a full three hundred and sixty degrees around it. He pulled himself up and towards the windowed office building's side, landing on the vertical flat white wall between the windows. The orange gem on his right forehoof began to glow, and an aura of orange energy blazed to life around Silver's body, absorbing what should have been his downward momentum as he began to run along the side of the building as if it was flat ground, picking up speed and turning to run up the wall, making it up another five stories before backflipping off, falling with a bright orange glow surrounding him. His magic launched himself towards the top of the building, soaring above it and absorbing his momentum when he was near the middle of the roof, falling gracefully and landing on his rear hooves, forehooves stuck out to the sides as though encouraging an invisible crowd to applaud. Sweet Celestia, ponies simply [i]had [/i]to be noticing how cool he looked right now!

A confident grin stretched across his face as he began to pant and his eyes widened from the rush of adrenaline. Yes, this was what he needed. This was what he'd been missing! This was intensity! This was speed! This was perfection!

Like an athlete that had just finished a marathon, he took a moment to victoriously lie on the ceiling, catching his breath. When it was back under control, he got back up, grinning widely. Like a starved fox searching for his next meal, he looked around, searching for something to jump off, something to jump onto, something he could use to keep on going. He spotted a hyperrectangular metal vent and went for it, running in perfect synch and leaping at it, his forehooves slamming onto the vent and pushing him upwards, landing on the building's smaller top half-floor and leaping from it in a tall arc, going for height rather than distance, sailing off the building and towards the ground.

He twisted around in the air so he was heading towards the ground back-first, and a thoughtful frown crossed his visage as he looked up at the portal he'd made. His mind brought up a map of Canterlot and possible ways he could continue his journey, his current path towards the ground marked as an orange pulsating spherical light that continued to travel down, and his horn lit up with the manifest willpower that was his magic. The feel of wind against his face and especially his horn was pleasurable and oddly soothing, and despite how many times he'd done this, he still loved it.

He was glad this city didn't have a lot of Pegasi flying around near or above the skyline, cluttering up the air and getting in the way of his Epic Movement... No, that name was terrible. Anyway, He was glad this city didn't have a lot of Pegasi flying around, cluttering up the air and getting in the way of his preferred method of movement, but he still wished the town had SOME. After all, flying Pegasi would be able to watch him soar through the air, his spiky hair majestically flapping in the breeze, and they would be able to admire how cool he definitely looked right now.

He could almost see the whole city, orange lines plotting the potential routes he could take through blue portals. Like a sculptor making tiny alteration after alteration to get his work of art looking just right, he angled that portal ten degrees forward, then ten more, and then he rotated it two degrees back, and tilted it just three degrees to the right, moved it a millimetre forward and two centimetres up...

His body fell faster and faster toward the ground, his attention solely on the portal and how he'd make his way around the city, completely ignoring the ground he was rushing towards faster and faster each second. Like it called his name, he glanced back at the ground when he was moments away from touching it.

For the briefest fraction of a second, a spherical orange magic barrier erupted from his right forehoof's shoe, expanding to shield his whole body as he hit the ground-  
And then he shot up into the air with double the kinetic force of his descent, screaming like he was on a rollercoaster as his tongue lolled out of his mouth, flapping in the breeze like a dog on a fast kart. His horn blazed to life as he formed a blue portal fifty feet above him, rushing into it in less than a second, shooting out of the portal he'd angled perfectly like a cow launched from a catapult, though one that left behind an orange, gold, and silver and black contrail. Thanks to his bubble of magic now expending stored momentum to clear air out of the way, he ignored air resistance and didn't lose speed as he flew up. He soared high above the skyline, easily overtaking a flock of birds flying in the same direction, and when he reached the peak of his jump, he tilted himself forwards in his orange bubble, straightening out like a Pegasus, specifically so his stomach wouldn't lurch when he began to fall towards the ground. He hated that feeling. He noticed Aquilla in the air below him, following him from fifty meters away, watching his acrobatics with a proud smile.

The orange aura flared up around Silver again like a meteor igniting from air resistance, the aura of momentum magic slowing his descent for a few seconds as he began to glide, and then shooting him forward with an even bigger burst of speed, blasting himself from one end of the city to the other in just a few seconds. His lips opened to reveal a grin, his eyes glancing around at the massive town that stretched out under him, taking in every detail and catching the eyes of thousands, his four-coloured contrail visible for far longer than the living advertisement for momentum magic books was. He flew past his intended location and didn't care, he was having fun just flying around town. Well, not exactly flying... He'd think of a better word for this manner of magic-enhanced free omnidirectional movement later. [i]'Falling with style' [/i]rolled off the tongue rather well.

He remembered the meeting he was supposed to go to, and changed his plans from _Fly around for a bit_ to _Make the most dramatic entrance possible_. His eyes darted around as he slowed down, glowing orange, and planned his new course in his mind: He'd grab an upcoming lamppost's horizontal part and spin around it, arc through the air, bounce on the ground to build momentum, and direct his ascent straight up until he had a straight shot at the building he was really supposed to be inside by now, then shoot himself right into it, and it would be epic.

As he locked his hooves around the lamppost and flipped his rear legs up to spin around it, the lamppost began to bend and the ground beneath it cracked, Silver's eyes widening in shock. That shock turned to rage as he let out a growl and let go, his horn glowing as he used his favourite fire-and-forget repair spell on the lamppost, slowing down its descent as his orange momentum aura flared up and slowed him down as he landed almost weightlessly on the ground. He furiously spun around and bucked the still-glowing lamppost with both hindlegs, knocking it to the ground with a loud crash. He gripped the lamppost's top and let the restorative energies pick the lamppost back up, fixing itself up until it was as good as new while flinging himself through the air like a cow launched from a catapult, and he gave up on being fancy, tapping into some of his stored momentum to shoot himself straight up, his eyes locking onto Comet Trail's home.

His orange aura flared and pushed him forwards, smashing forehooves-first into the jaded window of Comet Trail's home. His orange aura forced the glass shards into the room, his horn giving a blue flash that targeted the glass as his orange aura slowed him down, absorbing his momentum and allowing him to neatly land on the table with no sliding or any kind of fanfare beyond his entrance. He simply and casually stepped from the air onto the table, as elegant and seemingly normal as trotting off a stopped train. As the other ponies in the room looked at the newcomer, shards of broken glass lit up with his blue magical light and floated back up to the window frame like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle moved by invisible hooves, reforming itself and altering as the glass's colour condensed, becoming a clear glass window with a stained-glass five-pointed orange star in the glass wall's center.

"Comet Trail, Coffee Grounds, Lemon Field," Silver greeted each one with a descending tone of voice and decreasing amount of patience. "Shall we begin?"  
Silver Star had entered the room.

[br]

"An entrance like that, and you didn't even consider apologizing for being late. Good to know that rumour about you was true." Comet Trail said.

Despite his outward serenity, adrenaline burned in his soul. His mind was still racing, just like his heart. He saw all the possibilities his mind could predict, and he was sure this would hold no challenge for him. He decided to provoke them and learn what he could from their reactions and the microexpressions his eyes would pick up on. "It would waste time, we both know this. Would you like me to leave and come in through another window, so we can exchange pleasantries, and [i]then [/i]get to the unpleasantries?"

"No, that won't be necessary," Comet Trail grumbled.

"Good, good," Silver said in thought, and then frowned. "Let's make this quick, shall we? All three of you, speak at the same time."

"Wh- This is ridiculous, you can't possibly-" Coffee began.

"You two don't have anything to say?" Silver asked pointedly, eyes rapidly moving to glance at the other two ponies in turn.

They spoke in unison.

"Oh, I've got something to say!" Lemon Fields growled.

"I don't see how you can-" Comet Trail began.

"Fine, we'll do it this way." Silver decided.

In one moment, his horn lit up like a blue flame, and many eyes in the room widened as they remembered the rumours about what that horn could do. Lemon Field began to bite at and fiddle with his saddlebags, the metal clasp refusing to cooperate. In the next moment, they were all bodily picked up and removed from the ground - something that made the Earth Pony guards more skittish - separated into four groups, and unceremoniously dropped to the ground like nothing more than somewhat heavy bags of trash. They each landed on their hooves, but as they hit the ground, walls of metal shot up from the ground to separate the four groups from Silver and give them each a pyramid-shaped room seven feet wide, as though they were all livestock. The metal thickened before they'd even gotten a chance to fully process what was happening.

His horn still alight, the silver Unicorn cast a spell that would have given a skilled Unicorn trouble if he hadn't already used it hundreds, if not thousands of times in his lifetime, and using it had eventually become as easy as blinking or reciting your favourite song. Replicas of himself with closed eyes blinked into existence in flashes of blue light, their eyes snapping open in perfect synch. They had a tenth of his physical strength, less durability than a sheet of paper, and all of his agility. Each of the replicas teleported into one of the makeshift rooms while the real Silver gave a flash of blue magic to summon forth the book he'd been reading earlier, opening it with his hooves to the exact page he was recently on, smiling at how good he was getting at precise book-opening. If only that was a sport officially recognized by the Equestrian Games. That, and throwing apples at things.

"I'll talk to you, first." Each of the three Silver replicas said to the ponies they were talking to in unison.

"Good." Coffee Grounds said with a hungry smile.

"Thank you," Comet Trail said genuinely, his sarcasm gone, replaced by a face of nervousness and need, and Silver focused on this one first, storing the memories of the other replicas to review later. "You got my letter, right?"

"Yes. I invited the others so anyone watching me would find it harder to guess what I came here for. So... Comet Trail. You came to me in your hour of need. You need something taken care of quickly, and discreetly. Somepony has evidence that you did something unforgivable, and you want that pony dealt with, and all evidence of your most recent failure covered up in the process. By the way, make this quick, before the others start to wonder why I entered your room first."

"Please," Comet said needily. "I... I know I messed up, but I want to fix this. That scoundrel only sent the threat to me yesterday, but he hasn't sent any demands, only a warning that should his informants in the Canterlot P.D. and Royal Guard find out, I'll be ruined! I don't know what he wants and there's nothing I could do! If word of this gets out, I'll be... I'll be ruined, and-"

"I know. But here's the thing... what can one such as yourself offer me?" Silver asked in an utterly detached tone, as if holding Comet Trail's life in his hooves and having the ability to save it was little more than a purchase he was thinking of making. "You aren't the first to ask me to help them, but I don't usually get hired by somepony like you. If I have the connections and power necessary to do something you can't, so what can you offer me to make me do what you can't?"

"I have a lot of mo-

"Be silent," Silver snapped suddenly, his horn blazing to life. No spells were cast, it was simply a reflex. The very thought of Comet buying his way out of this seemed to infuriate the young lad. Though in some places, a horn glowing mid-conversation with an uncast spell was the Unicorn equivalent of your pants getting caught on something and torn off, Comet heard stories about what his horn could do, stories he was putting a lot more stock in now that the pony in question had flown in through his window and thought nothing of it. Comet quietly and fearfully nodded his head.

And just like that, Silver's rage had vanished, along with the glow of his horn. "Money's nice, but I'm hardly strapped for cash," He mused aloud, horn lighting up and flashing as he summoned a small unwrapped ball of chocolate into his rising hoof, throwing it into his opened mouth. He casually looked around the metal room he'd made as he chewed, swallowed, and talked. "The only reason I don't top the 'Richest Ponies in Canterlot' lists? I don't care about it enough to pay the listmakers to put me on top. I also invest my money and start businesses, I actually use that money, I don't sit on a liquidated gold fortune all day like some idiotic Dragon. I have plenty of ponies that owe me favours, I'd much rather have something concrete, something tangible. Now, there are few things you have that I don't, so I think I'll take them. All of them," Silver decided, and stared directly at Comet Trail. "I want your place in the world," Silver decided, eyes gleaming with hunger.

Comet wordlessly made a confused noise of shock.

"You heard me. I want your home. I want your name, your title, I want your claim to the throne, I want all the properties and assets you own, I want the stipend the throne pays you purely for existing and being born into the right family- Which is, simply put, an utterly outdated and idiotic practice I plan on having abolished some time in the future. I want the right to call myself Prince Silver Star, and I want the right to replace you with an illusionist Spy that will impersonate you and serve me whenever I desire. You'll be taken care of, under deep cover, with a new name, mane, and fur colour."

Comet made a bewildered questioning sound.

"You can speak," Silver said with a roll of his eyes.

"D-Don't you already have an official title?" Comet asked nervously.

"Yes, but consider the following: Firstly, your claim to the throne is stronger than Wild Wind's or Shining Diamond's ever was. They were numbers 183 and 140 in line for the throne, respectively, and you are number 79. Secondly, if I have more than one, I can trade one away whenever I want. Thirdly, I don't think anypony else has that many claims to the throne, as far as I'm aware, and finally,[i] I want it[/i]."

"But... I've been a prince my whole life!" He protested, starting to sweat. "I can't just give that up for-"

"Of course not, not for your wife!" Silver chuckled.

Comet's tone softened, and his body weakened. "I..."

Do you care for her at all?" Silver wondered.

Comet's tone softened, and his body weakened. "Yes, but-"

"But what, do you love your bragging rights and money more?" Silver asked pointedly.

He looked down. "I..,"

"You lost your right to call yourself a Prince when you did something even young foals know not to do. I've seen pictures of your wife, and she's adorable. She also doesn't seem like a legitimately terrible pony, so tell me, what possessed you to betray her trust – and betray her – like this?"

Genuine sadness filled his voice. "She's hasn't talked to me in days, so I thought I'd try to get some happiness back into my life by-"

"By stealing the jewelry you'd gotten her over the years, replacing it with COSTUME JEWELRY, and selling the gems on the black market for money you spent on [i]collectable miniatures[/i]."

"I can't help it!" Comet yelled, bursting into tears. "They're just so cu-hu-hu-huuuute!"

Silver frowned. "To add insult to injury, you don't even play the game, you just paint the pieces and put them on a shelf in a hidden room in your house and you just... you just look at them like they're a foal's doll collection! Such a waste. And the same goes for your marriage. Relationships are about communication and mutual understanding. Not some foalish zero-sum game where whoever apologizes first loses and whoever has more power over the other and gets away with being terrible to the other more often wins! I won't ruin you, I'll make a deal with the blackmailer and keep him or her quiet, and if you're lucky, the blackmailer will do something stupid. If you want, I'll set you up with a job and house in Manehattan. You won't be recognized there. Maybe some good, honest work will make you a better pony. But tell me, did you consider asking her what was wrong?"

"Whenever I asked her, she got madder and said everything was fine," Comet said sadly.

Silver rolled his eyes. "How are you supposed to fix whatever's wrong if she does that? What an idiot,"

"Hey!" Comet warned, despite the Unicorn's reputation.

Silver smiled, which surprised Comet. "Correct option. Now, are you going to take the correct option again? Keep in mind that I refrained from mentioning this at the start purely for more dramatic impact, but I also want you to sign my contract,"

Silver's horn lit up for a moment as he summoned a long scroll of white fabric-ish paper bound by two orange cylinders lined with gold, opened it up, and levitated it to him while pulling out a ballpoint pen from a compartment hidden in the top cylinder. Another compartment opened up, revealing a tray of identical semispherical chocolates. His magic levitated one into his mouth, and the segment snapped shut.

"Sure, I'll sign-" Comet said, and then he saw what was written on it. "What," He said flatly.

"It's in a language you don't speak, and no existing translation spells have been programmed to recognize it. Still, my contract would not take effect if it wasn't written in an actual language with a concrete system of grammar and a community of those that speak it. It's more dramatic this way, wouldn't you agree?"

"And I'm supposed to sign this, despite having no idea what it says?" Comet asked skeptically.

"You're supposed to choose which of your possible future parallel universees you want to live in. In one hoof, you have a future in Manehattan with your wife. If you told her some story about having to give up not just your gems, but everything you had to save your lives from something or somepony, that'd work, but scare her. You could say you suddenly lost everything thanks to political machinations out of your control, but she might resent you for not being able to hold on to anything. Then again, I have no idea what your wife is like. You could say you donated everything to charity because you felt like it and you want to see how the other half lives. You could say Princess Luna came to you in a dream and convinced you that both of you would be happier this way. You could say a time-traveller warned you of an incoming disaster, and you had to give everything up and move to Manehattan to complete or permanently break the time loop and prevent the universe's destruction. The other universe is one where you tell me to go eat candy in someone else's office, and I do so. Your blackmailer will likely reveal your failings to the world, and the love of your life will likely leave you in disgust or fury. On top of that, Princess Celestia would likely strip your title from you, if not to please angry citizens or angry nobels or the readers and writers of magazines that'll pounce on you like you're worse than Sombra, then because I'm pretty sure she'd [i]want [/i]to. Upon leaving your office, before I crash through your window one last time on my way out, reshaping the tasteful stained glass star into a tasteful depiction of my flanks, I'd consider saying to have fun living in a world without any of your loves. And then I'd decide to not bother, because you wouldn't be able to. And not just because you won't choose this universe. Right?"

Comet was silent, and Silver decided to switch to the replica dealing with Coffee Grounds, reviewing his memories to get him up to speed. And rather than reviewing that replica's memories properly, he viewed a sped-up version of what had happened. It was amusing to watch the fellow Unicorn move and sell like an amateur, and seeing him summon charts and graphs coated in blatantly manipulated statistics was even more amusing. It was irritating to note that the replica hadn't blinked once, the entire time, and it made Silver wonder if he remembered to have the other replicas blink. Like finding a typo in your work you had once failed to notice, it was irritating in a way nothing else could possibly match.

[br]

"So as you can see, Mr Star... may I call you Silver?" Coffee asked with a wide grin.

"You may not." Silver said flatly, staring at the businesspony with his barely-interested, unblinking ice-blue eyes that seemed far too old, cold and wise for his young-adult age.

The three ponies looked deeper into his eyes, and were once again reminded that throughout the entire fifteen-minute meeting, he hadn't blinked once. They assumed he was using magic for that... or rather, hoped it was magic. Ponies that age should be out partying the night away, not working as Canterlot's sixth-youngest CEO and Businesspony to not only make it into the Financial Signs magazine, but to even get onto the 'Ponies Who Have Far More Money Than You' list.

Coffee had done his research, and he knew about as much as he could about Silver: The Unicorn known as Silver Star had shown up one day in Canterlot with an unusually large sack of money guarded by needlessly-complex layers of protective charms he had cast that only he(and maybe the Princesses, if they had a few weeks to spend on it) could bypass. Aside from his creativity and magic skill (Which was impressive, but not quite good enough to get him into Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, not that he was young enough to enter), he seemed to have a much more useful ability, one related to the Cutie Mark he was said to have, due to how often the symbol showed up on things he owned: A pattern of ten orange stars linked by blue bands in the design of a a tree-shaped constellation.

He had an eye for connections, and despite how lame 'My Cutie Mark represents my ability to make Connections' sounded in a world where Cutie Marks could be for things like Supersonic Flight or Every Form Of Magic, or he could accurately see everything connected to something, along with what influences it would have. He could solve puzzles that used connections or ciphers just by glancing at them, and easily calculate the force and trajectory needed to win just about any game of skill or the mind. Then, with his own intelligence, he could figure out what move was best for him, tipping over exactly the right domino to have everything he wanted fall right at his hooves. He'd occasionally state in a factual and non-boastful manner that he 'Knew everything', and when he was doing business, he certainly seemed to... though Coffee was pretty sure that it was just an act he used to intimidate others and build up his reputation, and he had a ton of spys everywhere. After all, the rumours said he was great at summoning magic, and though rumours about what houses he was aligned to and exactly what he could summon differed, his go-to summons seemed to be birds. After arriving in Canterlot, he began playing the stock market and other ponies for all they were worth, multiplying his funds almost daily. He bought out small businesses and moved his way up the chain, going from small corner-shops and independent restaurants to conquering larger companies and franchises with enough worth to interest him. He'd even take down lawbreaking or shady businessponies who sold faulty goods, artists and fashion-ponies who dared commit the unforgivable sin of plagarization, and even corrupt nobles who didn't deserve their riches and thought themselves untouchable. He'd make a game out of it, plant the seeds of ruin and set the dominoes of disaster falling, and at the end of it all, he'd pocket their funds as an unofficial reward to himself and leave them at the mercy of Celestia's finest. Or the royal guard, if Celestia's finest were busy.

Yet tonight, these businessponies had booked a meeting with him, and paid the fee for booking a meeting with him, for they were trying to sell their failing Coffeehouse to him. They knew he wanted the place, or rather, the land upon which it stood. It was a good location: close to the Castle and the town's Library(As opposed to the castle library or Canterlot Archives, which was stuck inside the Castle and therefore off-limits to average ponies), so it would be visited by those studying at the local library, and most Royal Guards when they were off-duty, as well as anypony else in the general area. He'd just have to fire the current mediocre coffee-makers, and bring in some ponies who knew what they were doing. Silver seemed to have connections everywhere on a good day, and he knew a few drink-makers and coffee-brewers that wouldn't mind moving to Canterlot on short notice if he asked nicely and offered a somewhat sizeable bonus.

Yes, he could do great things with that location. He just had to get it from these mediocre businessponies at a price he was willing to pay. And these fools, who had squandered such a great location with mediocre and VASTLY overpriced coffee that drove away anypony who didn't somehow convince themselves that the generic 'Black fancy chairs in one corner, wooden tables on the whole left wall, walled-off food counter with workers behind it and an easily-changeable chalkboard for prices, orange lighting with black and brown highlights on the room's colour scheme' ambiance was worth the outrageous prices... These fools were not worthy of owning a business.

"Very well... Mr Star. We have finally come to an agreement on our price." Coffee Grounds said, trying to shake off the shivers continually running down his spine as Silver Star's icy gaze seared into his heart. He held out a hoof, pointing a white scrap of paper at the Unicorn, his hoof subtly shaking, trying to stop it by tensing the muscles of his limb.

A shimmering blue glow formed around the note and the silver Unicorn's horn, and he slowly levitated the scrap of paper closer to himself, drawing out the suspense. He read the number on the note. 2500 bits. "Interesting offer." He said coldly as the magic glow around the paper intensified for a moment. "Here is my counteroffer."

The note burst into flames, to Coffee's surprise.

"But first, something... 'off-the-record', as they say. I once read a certain work of fiction, when I was bored, and it starred a supposedly intelligent protagonist. To make this supposed intelligence clear enough to the audience the writer expected his books to have, the writer decided to remind you how intelligent he considered this character every five lines. That's what it felt like, at least. To make matters worse, the character himself, as though constantly peacocking for an invisible audience, kept reminding every other character in the story what a 'Genius' he considered himself."

"Uh... Yeah, I hate that too!" Coffee Grounds declared, wondering where all of this was coming from and where it was going. "That's just... the worst?"

"Unfortunately, this character was stupid, and he only seemed intelligent because outside of a few rare puzzle-solving moments of ingenuity, he was only the smartest character in a world of idiots. He was boring to read, boring to watch, he was annoying, and he was utterly unlikable. There was never any tension, because this character would constantly get bailed out by pure dumb luck and conveniences upon conveniences if his own wit combined with the writer's wit couldn't hack it. He had no ponifying moments, beyond the obvious and stereotypical ones, and while fans may argue his unbearable personality was a front to cover his insecurities, the writer certaintly didn't seem to be going for that at the time, but I'm sure he'd happily accept the credit for such a great get-out-of-ponifying-characters-free card. He constantly wasted time trying to validate the chips on his shoulders, and his own stereotypical physical deficiencies by rubbing his supposed intelligence in the face of every character who'd let him, and it was just downright unpleasant to read. So I'll skip the part where I'd planned to do that on the way here, you'll skip the part where you'll make that necessary, and I'll get to the other two, who have far more interesting backstories."

The note reappeared, and he levitated the paper back to Coffee Grounds and his friends, and the three looked at it together. It now read... 25 bits.

"This... This is... You just removed the last two zeroes from the price!" Coffee shouted incredulously.

"Yes, this is the maximum price I am willing to pay." Silver Star stated. "I know of your business, if it can be called that, and your mediocre coffee. Everypony in Canterlot knows of your mediocre coffee. Your latest move, your attempt to sell the business and 'Jump ship', so to speak, may be the smartest thing you have done in a while. However..."

The temperature in the small metal room lowered by a few more degrees.

"You have a recipe for disaster on your hands." He said ominously. He spoke with such certainty, such apathy, it was as if he'd already seen the events that would come to pass and barely cared about them enough to mention them. "Your crops have been planted, and are slowly dying. Your hourglass is slowly ticking down... and when you run out of time, when you reap what you have sown, are you prepared to bear witness to the vile fruits of your labour? Are you really willing to wait and watch as your business falls apart and drags you down with it, like a cursed anchor dragging you to the depths of the ocean? Or, will you take the smart route, and sell your business and its properties to me, somepony strong enough to lift that anchor?"

"I want to sell, but 25 bits?! l couldn't buy a decent meal in this town with 25 bits!" Coffee protested.

"Very well... Would twenty bits cause you to feel less guilt over your own failures?"

"That's it, I'm out!" Coffee snapped, turning and aggressively staring at the wall for a few moments. "...Could you open this up?" He asked awkwardly, turning around.

Silver realized he'd pushed far too hard, and he realized he'd been far too much of a jerk, and while his face remained impassive, he hoped this next bluff could save him. "Sure. But first, tell me, when ponies hear that you denied Silver Star, will ponies want to buy something from you, or will they fear me too much to want anything to do with you? Will they assume you wanted to sell something to me, will they assume I wanted to buy something from you, or will they assume you're the next target for that band of thieves I'm certainly not the leader of? You have many potential futures where things go badly for you, and the future I'm offering you is the only one you really have. Will you rid yourself of the dead weight you call a business and gain 25 bits? Or will you cling onto that weight until it pulls you under?"

The oppressive cold air seemed to lift slightly, as he became disinterested once more. Coffee turned around, glanced at the metal wall, and looked back to Silver. "So... do we have a Deal?" He asked, his eyes flashing with a bright silver light during that final word.

"Deal!" Coffee and his guards suddenly cried out in unison. Then they came to their senses, but still agreed that selling was a good idea. After all, making twenty-five bits was better than nothing at all. Besides, the business was about to go under anyway. Better they sell it off now than deal with it going under. That way, it'd be his problem, not theirs.

Silver Star opened up another hidden drawer in his desk, near the first one, and got out a contract he'd already written up that morning. Everything was going exactly according to plan. He levitated his quill and contract to Coffee. "Here's the contract, and my quill. Just sign on the bottom line." The businesspony did so, and held them up to Silver. The silver Unicorn magically took the contract, placing it in his desk and sliding the hidden drawer back into the desk.

Silver Star gave a cold smile, the smile of a pony who was marginally pleased, but not quite enough to show. "Pleasure doing business with you."

Silver vanished.

"Likewise," Coffee said, taking it as his cue to leave before he got an even worse price. Then, he realized that he couldn't leave, not until the metal walls were removed.

[br]  
"I'll talk to you, first." Each of the three Silver replicas said to the ponies they were talking to in unison.

"Well, that fits, considering what you did to my family." Lemon Field growled.

"Did what?" The Silver replica with Lemon began to wonder aloud. "Gave them another chance at life, saved them from their own incompetence, got the banks off their backs? Or expected a reward for doing so?"

"You're taking seventy percent of our earnings! Seventy percent!" Lemon snapped.

"You make enough to live, and that's it. If you want anything more, you'll have to earn it yourselves. Perhaps you could try selling food made with lemons, or some lemon-themed merchandising? Something the contract I offered intentionally didn't cover? Branch out. Find something you don't suck at, make it work for you. Make a toy, a ponified lemon."

"We don't know how to make that stuff, we're farmers!"

Silver looked down on the pony like he was a judge condemning the worst kind of criminal. "Don't insult farmers. You were not farmers, you were fools. Would you like to know why?"

"Why?" Lemon asked angrily.

"To reduce the chances that you'll do something stupid, how about a joke, to lighten the mood? It'll likely soften what comes next. Why did the chicken cross the road?"

Lemon was surprised, and his mental guard was lowered. "Why?"

"No, you have to say it. You have to say 'I don't know', and then repeat the question," Silver explained.  
Lemon rolled his eyes, then grit his teeth, looking at Silver like he was now the most annoying pony he'd ever met. "I don't know, why did the chicken cross the road?" He asked.

"Because it was your job to cook it," Silver said smoothly, a smile slowly breaking out on his face.

Lemon paused for a moment, trying to figure that out. And when he did...

"Hey!" Lemon snapped curtly.

"Physically speaking, your farm was so clumsily mismanaged, I'd be amazed if you told me you didn't have your youngest handle the shift timetables." Silver casually informed him, as if he thought the pony beneath him to be exactly that in every way. "You had four ponies working the same section of land, casually talking to each other instead of working separate parts of the farm in a basic crop rotation on your separate shifts. A simple rotational crop system is the foundation of all good farms, but you didn't know that, and didn't care enough to look it up. You all worked from Mondays to Thursdays, taking Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays off... Even though the weekends are when many have the free time needed to visit the markets! You lack understanding of the basic logic and science behind farming, the books bought and added to your debt should help you with that, and if you're using the fertilizer company I recommended, crop yields should be increased far beyond what they are now. Earth Pony magic may be great for farming, and little else without techniques rarely seen in Equestria, but it can't do everything alone. And finally, you sold your food at an unfairly low price at the market, I raised them to comply with Canterlot standards. When you sell an item, you also sell the time it took to make the item, calculated by calculating how much money you'd make if you spent your time working for somepony else doing similar work while getting a fair price for it."

"'You calculated' the prices?" Lemon asked angrily, doubting the silver unicorn's ability. "Who will buy our food when you've put our prices that high?!"

"In terms of mentality, you've clearly forgotten the first rule of salesponyship. I should charge for this, but here's some advice for you, for no additional fee: [b][i]Ponies do not buy things! Things are sold to ponies![/i][/b] That's the real first rule of business, some might even call it the only rule of business, and you failed to accept it, you failed to understand it, you failed to realize it. Simply put, you failed," Silver intoned, and then he began to find this amusing, a smile slowly spreading on his face while Lemon grew more enraged with each word. "And if you cannot sell food to the hungry, you don't deserve to call yourself a Farmer. On every level, every possible level, you failed! Your farm was mismanaged so badly, I'm almost impressed at how badly you failed! Do you have to put effort into being terrible at literally everything, or do you just wake up that way every day, wide-eyed and empty-headed? Is there some kind of curse on you I haven't detected because I don't care about you enough to check? I'm actually considering hiring you, just so I could give you a position you aren't qualified for, and then have others pay me for the right to watch you fail at it amusingly! After all, I don't find your incompetence amusing, I find it pathetic, but others may find you funnier than me. Perhaps, when the joke that is you and your existence gets old even for them, I'll trick a rival into 'Poaching' you, so I could watch your complete lack of ability ruin things for them! After all, defeating an opponent is sweet, but making an opponent defeat himself is so much sweeter,"

Lemon Field grit his teeth. "Are you done?"

"Are you done failing at everything you attempt?" Silver asked with a raised eyebrow.

Lemon Field opened his mouth, Silver's eyes gleamed, and he and Silver spoke in perfect unison. "What do you get out of talking to me like this, you jerk?"  
Lemon gasped and took a step back, colors inverting within the dome, and Silver smiled. Even after hours without sleep, he still had it. "Simply put, the more unpleasant I make this experience for you, the less likely you are to come back," Silver explained. "Tell me, does your complete incompetence bother you, or have you simply gotten used to it with age? Have you improved at all in any skill from the day you were born, or were you as hopeless then as you are now? Does sheer incompetence run in the family? Does-"

As if getting a signal from somepony Lemon couldn't see, Silver stopped. "No, that joke's just tasteless, I'm trying to be a better pony than this. You can work on improving yourself, you can be better than the pony you were yesterday, you can be better than the pony you were an hour ago. You have potential, but when you think there's nothing left to do, or that there's no point in using your skills in any way other than the way you're currently using them, you're wasting them. You can do better, so stop disappointing Past You and stop embarrassing Future You. I offered you and your whole family a second chance to hit it big, and while you'd probably like me more if I gave you a better deal, my predictions are always 100% accurate. I gave you what you needed to succeed, and no more. I know you and your family can be better than this."

Lemon Field growled. "Give me the contract.

"A wise choice." Silver said, giving the contract to the lemon pony, along with an inked quill. "Sign on the dotted line, and I'll forgive your mistake here today."

Lemon Field glared at Silver. "I'm doing this for my family." He said, and took the quill.

Silver's pupils shrunk, and his body tensed. "No." He said quietly, his horn lighting up with a wild and shaky blue aura, sparks flying from the tip.

"What?" Lemon wondered, confused.

"No." Silver repeated, transmuting the quill into a living Goose that squawked aggressively, causing Lemon to drop it in shock. Silver's magic grabbed not just the contract, but a spherical segment of air around it, tearing it away from the farmer so hard an audible pop was heard in the small space. Eyes unfocused and unmoving, he opened his mouth and his teeth tore the contract from his magic. He chewed aggressively and swallowed the contract whole. A confused Lemon Field wondered why his head started to feel strange, then he gasped as several thousand hours of knowledge in the art of woodworking, smithing, tailoring, and making toys out of fabric and stuffing did not drill its way through his skull or ears like in the books he'd once read, but instead suddenly appeared there, as if he'd read a bunch of books at random points in his life and he suddenly remembered every last thing every last book had said. Specific techniques for working with felt and silk and harvested leather, why buying materials in bulk was always the better option, knowledge of the Golden Ratio, Golden Rectangle, Golden Spiral, the perfect, beautiful, ever-present spin, the perfect symmetry of the rectangles in art, it was all there and it was all beautiful.

"I just gave you a crash course on art." Silver explained, his mind seeming to return, along with some rage, staring right into Lemon Field's eyes. Without even needing to turn his head or move his eyes, a blue beam of magic fired from his horn and struck the Goose in the face, teleporting him away. "You wish you were an artist, you hate the cards fate dealt you, and you wish you could make painting using nothing but lemon juice a thing. Go make your family proud. And never come back here again, do you understand me?"

Lemon blinked, and his eyes began to well up. "Understood."

Silver closed his eyes for a moment, as if sending a signal to the other replicas, and opened them. "Now, if anyone asks, you signed that contract and this was an incredibly unpleasant experience for you, I berated you for hours, and here's how it ended..."

"Will you sink and drown, or will I bail you out?" A Silver replica asked Coffee Grounds.

"Will you get back to work, or will your family pay for its mistakes yet again?" A Silver replica asked Lemon Field.

"A life with your love, or a life in the gutter?" A Silver replica asked Comet Trail.

Each of the three Silver Star Apple replicas spoke in unison. "It all depends on what you say next. So tell me... Do we have a deal?"

[br]

Back at home, fixing the hole he'd blown in his wall with his horn's blue light, Silver Star was glad his office was now once again soundproof, as it prevented anypony outside from hearing what he was about to say.

"EEEYESSSSS! EEEEEYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEESSS!" He bellowed, his horn glowing with a beautifully bright and full blue light (He did not know this, but Twilight's was both fuller and brighter) as he telekinetically levitated his body up for the split second it took to cause himself to stand atop the seat of his heavy steel, marble and cobalt throne. Like a pony that had just scored the winning goal in a Stormball game, he punched his hooves into the air. "YES! YES! YEEESSSSSS!"

He punched a hoof not just towards the door the coffee-seller had walked out of, but where he calculated the center of that pony's head currently was. "EAT IT! EAT EVERYTHING! EAT! GRASS! GET ON MY LEVEL, CANTERLOT! AND EVERY LAST PONY IN IT! GET! ON! MY! LEVEL! I HAVE EVERYTHING YOU EVER HAD AND EVER WILL HAVE, AND THEN SOME!"

He swung a hoof down onto the top of his chair's back as if he was trying to break it, hopping up with his other hooves and sailing through the air in a slow, lazy backflip. "I AM THE GREATEST! I AM THE ULTIMATE! I AM PERFECTION!" He yelled as he descended, landing on his rear hooves, his forehooves landing down in front of him. He strutted around the room like a peacock, and then started waving his rear around while rotating his tail. "I! AM! THE! BEST! I! AM! THE! BEST!"

His horn lit up and he vanished in a sphere of blue magic both perfectly-formed and devoid of character, reappearing in front of his doors, facing them and facing away from his windows. He smirked, rearing up, and he flipped back and landed on his forehooves, riding the momentum and flipping back again onto his hindlegs, flipping back again and landing on his forehooves, and so on until he reached his desk, flipping higher to land on it forehoof-first and continue the flipping, jumping back again and landing atop the thin back of his thronelike chair, spreading out his forehooves and coming to a perfect stop on such a narrow and dangerous platform. "NAILED IT!" He yelled, bending over just a little and pointing out his flanks, rapidly rotating his tail in victory. His throne suddenly had its back extend and rocket up. "I am so AWESOME!" He yelled as he hopped back casually from the top of his throne, falling down in midair head-first, teleporting at the last possible second and landing on the seat of his chair, sitting on it. "AAAHAHAHAHAHA!" He laughed. "AAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA! AAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA-[b]OH SWEET CELESTIA, I'M SO BORED![/b]" He yelled furiously.

He twisted in his seat and extended his body, his back ending up resting on the seat of his chair while his forelegs and head dangled over one side and his hindlegs and tail dangled over the other, letting out a moan of frustration. "MMMNNNNNYAAAAAAAAARGH!" He roared ineloquently. Flicking his tail to the side, he flung an apple hidden inside it at a wall, splattering against the wall like paint. His horn lit up, casting his favorite quick fire-and-forget repair spell on the apple pulp, apple juice and apple chunks converging on one point so hard it bounced off the wall while spinning, bouncing four feet off the wall and falling to the ground, rolling away. He grumbled and considered trying again, hoping to make the reconstituted apple bounced harder, but he decided against that.

Bored, his horn lit up as he lifted his throne with his magic and rotated it 180 degrees as its lengthened back returned to normal. The chair faced the windows, and he set it down with a loud thud that would have kicked up a few small dust clouds, if the immaculately clean room actually contained any dust. He got up from his position with practiced ease and gazed out the window, deep in thought, an expression of curiousity on his face. "I'm doing well for myself." He said, and sighed. Then, in a more uncertain tone, as if he was trying to convince himself, he said, "Today was good for me. I now have another plant in Canterlot, just in case, I can invest in and improve that coffeehouse, and make it into another one of my main moneymakers, and that lemon . This is... good. This is very good. I can do a lot of good with this. My projected profit is higher than it was yesterday."

His mind started to wander as he stared out of the window, looking at the ponies below him rushing about like panicked animals as they tried to get to where they had to be, at the jobless fancy high-society ponies who simply walked around because they could and had nowhere to be, at the ponies working away in the buildings at jobs they either loved or hated, and finally, at the horizon, the sky, and everything far away, everything beyond even his sight. "I'm doing really, really well for myself." He added. "I am happy. I should feel happy."

"That would have been me," He found himself muttering to himself. "Just a few years ago, that would have been me, glaring up at some smug jerk with too much power. Just a few years ago, that would have been me, being the hero, and not..."

He closed his eyes, and sighed. "This."

"But I still am a hero. So why doesn't it feel that good any more?" He asked himself, not dramatically looking off into the distance with no clear goal in mind, but fixing his eyes on one particular point on the horizon, one place he found himself feeling the urge to magically launch himself at. "My parents would definitely be proud of who I've become, not that it really matters any more. I am myself, not one of them. I... I'm happy. I should be happy. I've won. I hardly ever stop winning. I have not seriously gotten tired of winning. That would just be... insulting. And stupid. Me from the past would travel through time to buck myself in the face if I ever did, I'm sure of that. Maybe music will help."

Silver's horn lit up with a bright blue light, and he summoned forth an instrument, an eight-stringed magically-charged electric guitar with small holes providing access to a built-in speaker arranged in the shape of a five-pointed star. He'd made this little number himself, and it was available in stores now for just four hundred and seventy five bits!

"[i]Gold has lost its lustre, just as gems have lost their shine[/i]." Silver sang, starting with a melancholy chord, air solidified by his telekinetic grip serving as the pick.  
" _I'm getting bored of victory, and making everything mine._  
 _I've fought hard to get where I am, and I have come so far._  
 _Aside from the sun, which doesn't count, I shine as the brightest star._  
 _I've reached heights I once dreamed of, just as I once fortold!_  
 _So why is this starry void... so cold?_

 _Why do I still feel this way?_  
 _What is this void inside my heart?_  
 _I've reached the goal I've been aiming for,_  
 _Since my journey's start._

 _I've fought to build a throne,_  
 _And claim it for my own_  
 _And I've done it all alone._  
 _I've built a brighter future,_  
 _I've left the past behind._  
 _My will is steel, so why is my heart a stone?_

 _I've travelled so far from where I began_  
 _My life's gone according to my plan_  
 _I used to break locked doors, now they open for me_  
 _I used to be alone, and I still am,_  
 _But now I see..._

Two replicas formed behind him, singing harmony in the background for one line before vanishing. [i]"Now I see..."[/i]

 _I've reached heights I once dreamed of, just as I once fortold!_  
 _So why is this starry void... so cold?"_

Star sighed, dismissing his instrument in a flash of blue magic, eyes closing. "That helped a little. Maybe if I play it a few more times...? Nah, it must be the challenge I miss."

He blinked, and when his eyes opened again, literal blue fires were blazing in his eyes. [b]"YES!"[/b] he roared, summoning his instrument again so he could dramatically throw it at a wall, shattering it apart. He picked up his book. "When I finish this book-"

He slammed the book down. "[b]FORGET THE BOOK![/b] I'll look at my B-List of jerks in this town [b]RIGHT NOW[/b], and decide who gets an all-expenses-paid trip on the Ruse Cruise [b]today[/b]. Maybe it's the morality, or maybe it's the challenge that I'm missing... So when grifting, I'll disguise myself as a Zebra, and speak only in rhyme-No, no, that's too obvious, and too easy. I'll pretend to be a crazy pony! Yes, a crazy pony! A crazy pony that thinks birds are stalking her, and stealing her thoughts. I shall only speak if I can start the sentence with the letter B! And every sentence needs at least one R and two Ses, or it cannot be said! And I shall substitute letters with the letter B seemingly at random- No, that's stupid. That's the stupidest possible thing."

"GAH!" He snapped, and slammed his head into his own table, closing his eyes. [b]"WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?!"[/b]

He felt something on his neck, and opened his eyes. Aquilla was right in front of him, her talons awkwardly resting around his neck, as if she was thinking of choking him, but lacked the strength to do it. "Am I doing this right?" She asked.

Silver chuckled, used to this from her. "Very funny, Aquilla. But weren't you raised by ponies? If you don't know how to hug, something's wrong."

She gave up, and hugged him properly, the side of her face rubbing against his neck. Her feathers were so warm, so soft... She was the fastest Griffon he knew of, she was the most naturally-talented being he knew of, and she truly gave the best feather-rubs. He'd say he was lucky to have a secretary as amazing as her, but luck had nothing to do it.

"That's better." He said, giving her back two soft pats, which she liked, and giving the top of her head one downwards pat, which made her adorably angry. "Now, what brought this on?"

"What are you going to do with the money you got from those idiots you blackmailed?" She asked excitedly. "Are you going to fund a new magical armour program? A new magical weapon program? Are you going to make another cool sword that blows stuff up?"

"No, I was thinking... I'll throw half into the Contract-Breaking Fund, and the other half... Some charity can take it. Pick an orphanage in some small town and throw money at it."

"Really? But your Spares said they were making good progress on Project S."

"And they'll keep making good progress without extra cash. Those things don't need to eat, remember? They only like being paid because I like being paid."

"Alright, I'll tell them. For the record, I still think that's a dumb idea. You already have plenty of enchanted cloth suits and metal suits, and tons of other cool suits. What makes this suit so special, you're willing to pour four years and millions of bits into creating it?"

"You'll see, when it's finished."

"Hey, are you sure you aren't going to do ANYTHING cool with the money?" Aquilla asked eagerly. "Like buying some cool factory or company you've always wanted?"

"No, I think I'll be boring and throw money at my mistake, and some orphanages."

"Fine," She groaned.

"Glad that's settled. Now, what REALLY brought this on?" He asked.

She looked at him with concern. "Well... Seeing you mope around like a loser was painful in ways you can't even begin to imagine." She growled. "I can almost feel my spleen organizing betting pools on when my other organs shut down. Stop sucking so much! You aren't supposed to suck this much! It's lame! I want to look away and I easily could, but it wouldn't change the fact that you're moping around like a loser and it's annoying. Go get some friends already!"

Silver rolled his eyes. "Please. The scientist Elucidia once famously claimed a pony is only capable of having 2,000 meaningful friends. Any more than that, and the mind can't handle it, they become little more than collections of names and faces. I have over seventeen thousand friends, because limits are made to be broken so hard they regret even thinking they could stand in your way, and-"

"Oh, really?" She asked sceptically. "What's the name of the last mare you spoke to?"

He smiled, and his horn flashed blue as he summoned a thin azure notebook into a rising right forehoof. He flipped through the pages with his magic seemingly at random, holding the book so she could see it, but not him, quickly coming to the right page and showing her.

"Breaking Dawn, former Wonderbolt, left when about to be replaced with someone younger, been one of Celestia's guards for the past year, brilliant Buckball player. Nicknamed Scorch because she once accidentally set fire to a crate full of prototype flare-type fireworks. She found-

"Silver, this is an image of an orange Earth Pony stallion with a blue mullet," Aquilla pointed out.

His magic flipped to the correct page almost instantly, and he pretended that mistake had never been made. "-it embarassing, but she pretended it was part of the show, and it ended up making things far more impressive, even though some self-proclaimed important ponies almost got hurt. The fireworks shouldn't have been there in the first place, but she'd suggested adding fireworks to their aerial show to make it more interesting, and Spitfire said no, but some new recruit ordered them anyway to try and get in her good books. Rather than blaming the newbie responsible, they blamed Dawn for accidentally giving the newbie the idea, because the newbie was born with natural talent Dawn had to work for. They wanted to kick her out over all this, I helped her stay in by rigging it so the newspapers thought the fireworks were put in that particular spot on purpose and enchanted to target those ponies, so she could be kicked out for daring to question the 'eeeeeevil training-obsessed slave driver'. Why they obsess over that aspect of Spitfail's feigned persona, rather than her genuine complete lack of ability or dignity she or the Wonderbolts as a whole so often display, I'll never bother to find out. Everypony stopped caring about it after a few weeks, but that was probably a factor in her getting quietly phased out and eventually made to quit, rather than fired on the spot. Thinks Buckball is better than Stormball. Her favourite place to get some juice is staffed solely by my Silver Replicas, not that she knows. One day and four hours of realtime ago, we talked for three minutes in a teledate about some random stuff, I got intel on Royal Guard operations and sold it to Gold Standard for five thousand, five hundred and seven bits. It was going to be two thousand, but I haggled, because I was bored and he has too much money."

"Wait, teledate?" Aquilla wondered.

"It's the cool new way of saying 'She goes somewhere private I can teleport to while on her break, I show up for a short amount of time, and I leave when the conversation is over'."

"Sounds efficient. And you don't remember what you talked about, or what her favourite colour i-"

"Purple," Silver interrupted. "She thinks it looks good on her orange-red body and snow-white mane. I agree,"

"Great, now what's her favourite band?"

Silver frowned. "I don't think I've asked her that, but-" He turned, seemingly at random, to another page. "Featherbreak, was nicknamed Fatso while he was in the Wonderbolts, short for FAster Than SOund, can fly up to Mach 2, but incapable of Rainbooms or anything more impressive than actually managing to stay in the air despite his size and how bad he is at turning. He likes bad music, and pretending whatever bad dubstep he likes is a new genre, usually one with few to no other songs in said genre so it can't be compared to anything better. I set him up with a smithy in the Crystal Empire, he got the place when they branched out because I told them to, he pays good for the applicable enchantments I sell him, but he has no interest in magic beyond 'Does it work? If so, good.', and-"

"Great, they're both profitable for you," She said flatly, and rolled her eyes. "Now tell me, do you like either of these ponies?"

"I suppose so?" Silver shrugged, not expecting that.

"See, that's the thing. If you really liked them, if they were really your friends, you'd answer yes, and wonder why I asked something so stupid," She pointed out, her wings ruffling. "The names in that book aren't friends, they're business partners!"

"Remember last time I tried 'Meaningful' relationships?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. "Didn't exactly work out,"

She facetaloned. "Are you still punishing yourself over that?"

"I never did, self-flagellation is for dumb ponies. I accept that what I did was the perfect summation of everything wrong with who I am as a pony, and a hundred years spent trying to improve myself will never-"

"That was one dumb mistake, it doesn't prove anything about you, no matter what Cypress thinks,"

Silver frowned. "If you could avoid saying any of their names, that would be great,"

"You need to get over all this, until you're so over this that I can say all their names in a row and you'll feel nothing,"

"I always feel nothing," Silver said dramatically, looking off into the distance with a somber expression. "My soul is an ever-expanding void I can sate only with that which I hunger for. Though the emptiness within me is that which drives me on, seeking out greater challenges and new tastes and other forms of fulfilment, the emptiness erodes my will to continue on with each breath, like an animal gnawing at its bars. Yet without that hunger, I am no more than a satisfied Elder Dragon, sitting on his hoard and doing nothing with it. What does it mean to desire? What does it mean to have? Does life exist to eat, or does life exist to want to eat? Are you truly alive when searching for your next meal, or when consuming it?"

"You know what?" Aquilla asked, exasperated. "You can write these thoughts down in a book, [i]AFTER [/i]you make some friends! Real friends, not just a bunch of ponies that HAVE to put up with you because they owe you money or favours,"

"Actually, some of them are nonponies, like the foxes or that giraffe or that nest of-" Silver began to point out, his horn lighting up and summoning a black notebook in a cube-shaped flash of light. Without even looking at it, the book opened up and letters began to inscribe themselves on the paper, despite his current lack of a quill.  
"You're missing the point, stop acting like an underage filly at a Pseudogothic poetry jam!" Aquilla demanded furiously, wings flaring out like she was about to attack, and then her voice, eyes, and heart softened. "You're better than that. Come on, find a small town with some ponies that won't care what you have, and make some friends. You always wanted to go to this town? Great. You want to try everything in life? Try befriending the ponies you wouldn't find in a town like Canterlot,"  
"That's a good idea," Silver noted. "It'll certainly be better for me than my trips to Manehattan. I'll likely meet a varied range of personalities, and time spent away from this town might be good for me, perhaps it's overexposure that's dulling my senses."

His horn lit up, and he started to reenergize the teleportation seal he'd burned into the floor.

"The purpose of a vacation is completely lost on you, isn't it?" She asked flatly.

"It's only for emergencies," He assured her.

"And for when you teleport back every morning to check on stock prices," Aquilla muttered.

"I'll hardly need to do that if I bring my enchanted newspaper, which still needs a better name. You know, the one that scans paper. That's in the Silver Zone right now, right?" Silver asked.

"Yes." She confirmed. "The zone that also needs a better name."

He summoned a map of Ponyville. "All of these towns look good, except for the Canterlot Knockoffs and Superior Canterlots, but I hear this town right here was built on top of the door to Tartarus, and that's pretty brutal. Besides, I know ponies there... I mean, the pony I used to be knew them. One of them.. .Huh. Should I reveal myself to them? Applejack never seemed like the type to blab... Nah, it'll only complicate matters. I'm Silver Star, here for a vacation. Perhaps I'll set up a shop for enchanted items? Then again, hearing that pony- I'll consider talking to Applejack in private and magically swearing her to secrecy, that'll help if I need it."  
"Sounds great! Can we FINALLY go?" Aquilla asked, stretching her rear legs out.

Silver glanced at his hooves. "Sure, just let me calibrate my shoes for synching speed, and-" He said, and there was a loud rush of air as he seemed to vanish, leaving behind an almost-solid orange blur that shot right through his building's wall without harming it.

"Showoff." Aquilla remarked and swung her right taloned claw as though attacking an invisible punchbag, ripping a hole in reality into a dimension of alternating large gold and small purple sine waves. The scent of grapes wafted from it. She flew into it, the dimensional hole closing up behind her.

[br]

Rainbow Dash's rear legs struck the final puffy white cloud floating above Ponyville, and she zoomed back down to the grassy grove where Pinkie Pie was waiting for her with a stopwatch in her hoof, hitting the top so fast her hooves were momentarily a blur. "How fast was that?" Rainbow asked hopefully.

Pinkie Pie excitedly looked at her stopwatch, and then a wide grin spread across her face. "Six seconds!" She chirped merrily. "That's less than ten seconds!"

"Alright!" Rainbow cheered, punching a hoof into the air. "Personal best! World record, here I come!"

And then her cheer suddenly went away as she noticed something up in the air, something flying towards Ponyville very quickly. "Uh... Pinkie?"

"Yes, Dashie?" Pinkie said cheerfully, hoping Dash had stopped smiling because she'd just remembered there was something fun and awesome she'd forgotten to do with her, but there was still time left for them to do it before her break was over, and hoping she didn't see something big and scary approaching Ponyville that'd force her to return to Sugarcube Corner late.

"What's that behind you?" Rainbow Dash asked, pointing straight ahead with her hoof. Pinkie Pie looked behind her, peering overdramatically, and she saw a solid orange contrail rapidly heading for their town.

"It looks liiike... a grey Unicorn flying this way!" Pinkie said cheerfully. "I've never seen him around here before." She said happily, and then she gasped so overdramatically her mouth expanded more than it should have been able to. "Maybe he wants to be our friend!" And then she gasped harder. "Maybe he wants a party! Go say hi to him, Dashie!"

Meanwhile, in the sky, despite moving at a ludicrous speed that slowed down to mach 2 after leaving Canterlot airspace, Silver Star's ears twitched as he sensed somepony calling him grey. Years of dealing with that had given him a near-supernatural and utterly-useless sense for that one particular thing. He wasn't grey, he was silver, dagnabbit! Also, looking at Ponyville, he noticed a completely out-of-place crystal castle monstrosity around all the nice, normal, thematically-fitting cottage houses. He'd have to be blind to not miss it, considering how the thing was a giant eyesore. Then again, he lived in a giant silver and steel tower he'd built himself in a town filled with buildings made from marble, ivory, and stone, so what right did he have to tell strange ponies to get better taste in interior and exterior decorating? ...This right, really, since his Steel Spire was awesome and thematically fitting while not fitting, while this big crystal temple just looked weird in an old-looking town like this. Like someone had found a nice diorama of a city from a hundred moons ago, and slapped down a big pink gem where their megagem turbodream megaprincess hyperbeauty infinicastle would stand. He was reminded of what's-her-name, from Duel Academy. The absurdly powerful defective Unicorn mutant. The "Twonicorn". He was almost glad his original contract was never used on her. Then, he felt a pang of regret over who it [i]was [/i]used on.

Silver re-absorbed his momentum as he landed outside the town of Ponyville, preventing his hooves from automatically perfectly diverting his kinetic energy into the impact, making a colossal crater - And worse, a bad impression on the ponies of this town, like the Pegasus he could sense flying toward him – in the process.

He turned to look at the approaching Pegasus, noting her impressive speed. Which made sense, now that he looked at her beautifully lithe and toned aerodynamic body and the pure [i]magnificence[/i] of her strong-looking wings. With wing muscles like those, she could probably crush multiple apples with her feathers alone. Her prismatic mane was odd, but cute, a rare mutation, and despite how 'rainbow' was a collection of colours and not a colour in its own right, it seemed to suit this mare perfectly. "Hey, how'd you do that?" The blue Pegasus he recognized as Rainbow Dash, one of the heroes that had saved this world from Nightmare Moon, asked him, getting right to the point. He liked her.

"I'm the fastest Unicorn in the world." Silver boasted with a proud smile, something she seemed surprised by. "I'm here to visit somepony. My name... is Silver Star." Silver told the Pegasus in a calm, slightly-proud, and seemingly well-practiced manner.

Rainbow Dash had the weirdest sense of deja vu. There was something eerily familiar about the tone, inflection, emotion, and everything else about the way that Unicorn said his name. It sounded like Twilight's weird no-accent-at-all correct-pronunciation-but-not-overbearingly-fancy accent. "Are you from Canterlot?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Eeeyes." Silver admitted. "Are you from here?"

"No, I'm from Cloudsdale, but I moved here a while ago." She admitted. She then puffed out her chest and pointed her hoof at her chest in a cool-looking way, turning her side to him, and she puffed up her wings. "You are talking to the one, the only, the awesome... Rainbow Dash!"

His eyes widened in surprise. "Hey, I've heard about you!" He said, realizing who she was. The information was already there in his mind, he just wasn't really paying attention. "You saved Equestria a bunch of times, right?"

"Yeah, but my friends helped." Rainbow humble-bragged.

"Cool. So, what can you tell me about The Light of Harmony, or as some call it, Rainbow Power?" Silver asked.

"Uh... not much. We got six rainbow keys, and a big tree, and we got awesome new rainbow forms-" Rainbow said.

"What in rainbow colouration?" Silver joked, to her confusion. "Nevermind, just a bad joke," He said, deciding to write that one down later.

"Yeah, we got the keys when we did stuff, and... You should ask Twilight, she'd explain this magic stuff way better."

"I will, next time I see her. What is she like?"

"A total egghead, a good friend, and the smartest pony I know."

"Cool. Anyhoof..." Silver said, wondering if it was worth taking additional steps to avoid the risk of blowing his cover. "First, I should find a landmark, besides the giant castle, which wasn't on my map. Where is Sweet Apple Acres?"

"Over there." Rainbow Dash said, pointing a hoof. "It's the big orchard with a ton of apple trees, you can't miss it."

"Thank you." Silver said, and looked around slowly, as if imagining his place on a map. "So if the farm's that way, that means... Who do I talk to if I want to build my own house in this town?"

"Mayor Mare, in Town Hall. That way," Rainbow said, pointing him in the right direction.

"Thanks." Silver said, tapping his orange-glowing right forehoof onto the ground and launching himself in that direction like a kicked beach ball, the sound of a cannon firing escaping his enchantments, soating through the air and landing thirty feet away and beginning to walk normally.

Rainbow Dash suddenly landed right next to him, taking him completely by surprise. She'd pounced and glided without flapping, so he wouldn't be able to hear him coming, flaring her wings out at the last moment to put some strain on her wings and a lot less on her hooves, though those weren't really happy with her choice of landings, either. And since he wasn't really paying attention, he hadn't noticed the sound of displaced air approaching, either. Hmm... This Pegasus was certainly smarter than she appeared. Or, he was just an idiot for not paying enough attention and not realising that he'd just ended a conversation without actually ending it or making the other party end it, and so it was likely that she would follow him. Or both, probably mostly the former. "By the waaaay..."

"Yes?" Silver asked curiously.

"Aren't you that pony that tried to enter himself and a bunch of magic copies of himself as the Canterlot Team at the Equestria Games?" Rainbow Dash asked, starting to recognize him.

"Yes, and I'm certain that if I'd been allowed to enter with my team, I would have taken home enough medals to break records, and break Canterlot's losing streak at everything non-magical, while I'm at it."

"Oh, really? Even the aerial relay?"

"I bet I could throw the baton faster a lot faster than most Pegasus could fly with it." Silver shrugged.

"But that'd be cheating." She pointed out.

"It shouldn't be considered cheating. It's an alternate baton transportation strat." He decided.

"But there's already an event for stuff-throwers."

"Point." Silver admitted.

"So, what brings you to Ponyville?" She asked, flying up and hovering in the air beside him.

"That's classified." He said, thinking it'd sound cooler.

"Classified? Do you work for Princess Celestia?" She asked, pulling a lazy barrel roll in the air above him, going from one side of him to the other, displaying her absolute mastery of the air. Did she want to race him?

"From a certain point of view." He said with an auditory shrug. He did not shrug physically, he did not need to, the fact that he was shrugging on the inside could be heard in his voice. Internally, he realized that MISTAKES WERE MADE. HE HAD NO IDEA WHAT TO SAY TO THIS PONY, and he wanted to leave before this got awkward.

Deciding that this line of inquiry wouldn't get her anywhere, she moved on, the possibility that he may be one of those Canterlot High-Society posers looking to get favours from Twilight popping up in her head. "So, what are you doing after you get a home here?"

"I'm on vacation, so I'm going to read some books and have fun. Read any good books lately?" Silver wondered.

"I read Daring Do." Rainbow pointed out, wondering what his reaction would be.

That surprised him. "I love Daring Do." Silver admitted, smiling.

"Me too!" Rainbow Dash said happily, glad she'd found a fellow Daring Do fan.

"You know, a lot of pretentious ponies like to claim those books are 'just' generic action stories, but no, they're straightforward action stories, they're THE action stories. Interesting traps, a smart protagonist – always a plus in my book – and the sense that the world is this big, beautiful place full of danger and excitement. While Caballeron does get samey after a while, he isn't unbearable like some villains I've read in other stories. Worst case scenario, he's just there when Ahuizotl would have been a more interesting foe. Read anything else?"

"Not really. But Twilight did send me some 'Y-A' stories a while back, and she did say I'd like them. I'll read them when I run out of Daring Do books." She said, pronouncing it Why-Ay rather than Whyay or Yah. Rainbow Dash gained a cool point in Silver's eyes. "The next Daring Do book is coming out in a few months, and it's gonna be so! Awesome! And A.K. Yearling's promised to send me a signed copy! I can't wait!"

"Cool, I was just planning on camping outside the nearest bookstore for over sixteen hours." Silver admitted.

"I've always wondered what that's like." Rainbow admitted.

"Depending on the fandom, either boring until you realize it's a good chance to catch up on reading, or a genuinely fun time. For the superior fandoms like Daring Do, it's like a tiny convention outside every bookstore," Silver said with a warm smile, memories of all those tents and ponies in line eagerly and genuinely excited coming back, and he could almost hear a loud and overdramatic voice announcing their new friendship with a deep, echoing yell of 'FRIENDSHIP'. He smiled, getting an idea. She was cool. She'd helped save Equestria multiple times. So if he showed off like a massive plonker, to make her realize how cool he was, she'd definitely think he was cool! "You know those enchanted comic books that suck readers into their world, only letting readers out if they finish the story or say the emergency exit password? I own the best publishers of the best Daring Do fanzines. And when I say best, I mean the ones that offer fanmade interactive puzzles and temples. Of course, in the interest of fairness, I submit my puzzles anonymously. I've had fanzines accept my temple and puzzle designs and feature them for winning their monthly design contests, and I've had fanzines reject my designs in horror and quietly feature them in a corner while thanking their lucky stars that I didn't design ancient temples, claiming they're far too hard for the average reader to beat."

"I bet I could beat them." Rainbow bragged with a cocky smirk. Oh, he [i]really [/i]liked her.

He gave a cocky smirk right back. "I bet you could, but can you beat my best time?"

"Is that a challenge?" She asked, grinning.

"That just became a bet. Nine thousand bits says my scores can't be beat, and the loser has to treat the winner to the best meal in town." He said, and internally wondered if that sounded too forward.

"What, nine thousand?" Rainbow asked in surprise. She wasn't exactly broke, but she still wasn't made of money.

"Scared, Rainbow Dash?" Silver asked tauntingly.

"You wish!" She declared. "You're on!"

"Really, if one thousand is too much, I can make it ten. What I'm really after is the meal."

"Oh, really?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah. What's the best place to get something to eat in this town?" He wondered, deciding not to admit that he wasn't sure when the last time he ate [i]was[/i]. Aquilla would remember boring details like that for him, it was her job.

"Sugarcube Corner. So, what's your pen name?"

He grinned. "Silver Fox."

She chuckled. "Yeah, right. As if you're actually-"

Silver's horn flashed with the blue light of a quick and temporary illusion spell. The silver of his body and the orange of his mane left his body as orange balls of colour and switched places, the yellow five-pointed star on his crown fading away as the silver paint-like substance dyed his mane and the orange paint-like substance dyed his body. His tail's end condensed, errant curls straightening until it properly resembled a fox tail. The golden stripes of his massive tail sunk down to the base, where it dyed the tip as a five-pointed star that also resembled the stereotypical white tip on an orange fox's tail. Two seconds later, his body returned to normal, though his tail remained in its foxlike state. Glancing back, he decided he liked the orange foxy tail with yellow more than his old one.

Her jaw dropped. "...Silver Fox."

"That's right, I'm THE Silver Fox, creator of Silver Spiked Space, False Sense of Infinity, and Imperfect Suffervoid 9X!" The nerd announced with dark glee as the sky darkened and the camera zoomed in, as though the pony was a costumed supervillain announcing that HE was the one who dumped countless tonnes of pudding mix into the ocean and stole every puppy in the world. "He who made Rain Supreme herself, the best interactive comic tester in the business, spend two hours in one room, eight hours in the next room, and four days stuck in the next, only to find she'd wasted all that time on a dead end! He who made her break down in tears and use an emergency exit password for the first time in her life, and take a two-week vacation from all interactive comics before the next interactive puzzle on her list made her rediscover what she loved about puzzles and temples, an interactive puzzle I also created, under, a false, pseudonym!" He announced, gasping for air near the end. He took a deep breath, and calmed himself. "He who made the still-unbeaten A Special Silver Variety of Velocity! He who slakes his thirst with the tears of the unworthy and feasts upon the shattered hopes and dreams of the poor tortured souls that once knew what it was like to hope!"

The world returned to normal, and Silver smiled. "Pretty cool, eh?" He asked, his Canterlot accent now making his voice sound a tad goofy.

"This just got interesting... " Rainbow said with a daring gleam in her eye, and it faded quickly as she noticed something. "Hey, wait a second... Where's Pinkie Pie?"


	2. 2 - Now it's a Party

Mayor Mare took in a long and slow breath, savouring her office's pleasant scent of mahogany, almost-decaf coffee, and 'traditional papyrus'(Cheap) scroll paper, and that breath left her body in a sigh of contentment. She had neat stacks of finished paperwork, formal request forms, informal request letters, tax forms and scroll-letters addressed to her in a neat pile, and she placed stack after stack of that pile in the 'Done' tray on her desk. It'd been harder than usual, but as she smiled genuinely for the first time that morning, she was glad she'd finally gotten all of today's paperwork out of the way, right at the start of the day. She was now ready to face the day... Even if it would probably be the same as every other day: doing what she could to keep the town afloat, while putting serious effort into thinking happy thoughts like the belief that she still mattered when an Alicorn Princess with a direct line to Princess Celestia herself had set up a gigantic castle in town - WITHOUT APPLYING FOR A PERMIT BEFOREHAND! I mean, sure, she retroactively applied for a permit later and it was accepted, but that just wasn't the same thing! - while keeping up appearances and making sure she'd be re-elected this Fall, and every Fall after that, even though it wouldn't matter in the end, not when she was the mayor of a town Celestia's star pupil lived in, a pupil that was now a princess that made her feel hopelessly, woefully irrelevant...

She stopped that train of thought, and instead forced herself to think of all that paperwork she'd just completed. And that speech she'd given not too long ago, about how everypony was the hero of their own story. She still mattered to her town, and to her friends. She still had worth. Even if the world itself cared little for a self-proclaimed mayor that always won her small, crazy, noisy, bizarre town's election by default because nopony else really wanted her job, she cared about herself, and as a self-help book she'd picked up recently as said, she had to at least try to maintain a positive attitude. Nobody would want a hopeless little Mopey Mayor, after all! She was The Mayor of Ponyville, after all, and she had to seem like the best choice for the job. She was the Mare wearing the Mayorly Mask, and-

The doors burst open suddenly with a loud slam, interrupting her thoughts and making forget the possible titles for the upcoming autobiography she was most definitely going to write and publish one day, some day, eventually, maybe a few years later when the climate would likely be better. A pink blur whizzed into the room, coming to a physics-defying complete halt just inches away from her desk, the turbulence and air pressure sending the neatly stacked papers flying all over the room. The pink being's hair wasn't messed up by the air resistance at all, as if even air knew better than to get in her way.

"MayorMareMayorMareMayorMareMayorMareMayorMaaaare!" Pinkie Pie shouted, far more overexcited and overjoyed than usual. Her breath came in quick, shallow gasps through her nose, her mouth a permanent wide grin. Pinkie Pie stared at Mayor Mare expectantly, waiting for her reply.

They'd 'Done this song and dance' many times, as the cool Colts and Fillies say – Cool Colts and Fillies still said that, right? – and Mayor Mare decided that she'd draw things out and have some fun with things this time. After all, that book said to savour the little things in life that brought you joy, even if they didn't seem important or "Big" enough.

"Mayor Mare, Pinkie Pie is here to see you." Mayor Mare's secretary rather unnecessarily called out from her position in the hallway.

"I noticed~!" Mayor Mare sang in a cheery tone.

Mayor Mare paused and watched Pinkie Pie for eight whole seconds, The Mayor's practiced slightly-cheerful blank gaze looking directly at the real and overly-cheerful grinning face of Pinkie Pie. To her credit, Pinkie's smile didn't falter in the slightest, patiently waiting like a... like a... like a dam about to break would patiently wait for its chance to break completely instead of merely forming cracks? No, Pinkie's smile was large and honest, hardly a dam of anything. That wasn't a very good description at all. She'd have to put her story on another six-year hiatus while she practiced her writing until it was at a level good enough for her story. But some day, some day, SOME DAY, she would DEFINITELY write it! Eventually!"

"Yes, Miss Pie?" Mayor Mare finally asked the pink baker.

Pinkie let out a rapid stream of high pitched words spaced so closely together, even The Mayor of Ponyville couldn't understand them. And as a politican, it was her job to understand the un-understandable! ...The standable? She'd be hard pressed to find a mare her age that could call this high-speed babbling standable. "Pinkie! Could you please slow down?" The Mayor asked.

Pinkie Pie happily closed her eyes and gave a closed-mouthed smile as she nodded a few times, faster and more enthusiastically than anypony else Mayor Mare had ever seen. Then she stopped suddenly, breathed in, and all in one breath she said, "I was out playing with Rainbow Dash but this new silver Unicorn showed up and he was flying and he looked super serious and fancy but I bet he's just really sad and lonely and he's never been in town before so I want to throw him a party because he probably doesn't have any friends in Ponyville yet!"

Mayor Mare stared for a moment, stunned by Pinkie's spectacular display of breath-holding. That was long, even for her. Mayor Mare pretended to not understand at all.

"Sorry, Miss Pie, could you repeat that?" Mayor Mare asked innocently.

To her credit, Pinkie Pie didn't appear annoyed or tired in the slightest. She took a deep breath and repeated, "I was out playing with Rainbow Dash but this new silver Unicorn showed up and he was flying a rowboat and I've never seen him before and I've never seen a flying Unicorn before except for Twilight that one time and he told Dashie he'd be living in Ponyville and from what Dashie told me he seems really serious and formal and fancy but I bet he's just really sad and lonely and he's never been in town before so I want to throw him a party because he probably doesn't have any friends in Ponyville yet!"

Mayor Mare blinked, surprised. Okay, she'd officially earned it. ...Mostly. "Well, I'd love to help..." Mayor Mare said in her best and most suggestive tone, "But my office is such a mess-"

In the space of under a second, Pinkie Pie had become a pink blur again, whizzed around her office and gathered up all of the papers that were in The Mayor's 'Done' tray before the pink baker arrived, and finally came to an impossibly sudden stop in the exact same spot and stance she had been in almost a second ago.

Mayor Mare looked around the office, and noticed that not only had her papers been put away, but the office was suddenly much cleaner and tidier, everything was aligned with exact right angles, and everything had been dusted and polished. If Pinkie Pie ever showed any interest in becoming her janitor or maid, she'd get the job in a heartbeat. "Thank you, Pinkie Pie. I think my Secretary has the town's Roster, in the bookshelf hidden behind her desk-"

Pinkie Pie speed-blurred away, and appeared in the doorway a moment later, holding a large thick tome in her grinning mouth, between her teeth. She bounced over to Mayor Mare's desk and placed it down, looking at the Mayor with excited anticipation.

Mayor Mare opened her book and looked inside, rapidly flicking through page after page, looking for a page that wasn't completely filled with names or crossed-out names. "Let's see... New arrivals... Hmm... No, there's no record of any silver Unicorns buying any houses today, or even looking at potential properties to buy."

"What about a grey Unicorn?" Pinkie asked hopefully.

"No, no grey Unicorns, either." Mayor Mare said, looking down at her book. "...In fact... This town hasn't had any new arrivals for a few weeks. Are you sure he plans on staying for longer than a month?"

"I think so!" Pinkie said optimistically.

"Well, there's no record of him living here..." She said, looking down at her book. Then, she looked at Pinkie Pie and narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "Wait... Is he staying in my town illegally?"

"NO!" Pinkie Pie shouted suddenly in panic. Then, she giggled nervously while putting on a smile. "I mean, he probably just hasn't gotten around to that yet. I'm sure he'll do that tomorrow, after the party." She leaned forward and grinned conspiratorially. "And where will that party be?"

Mayor Mare sighed wearily, and then forced herself to keep up her Mayorly mask of subtle optimism. "Pinkie Pie, I've already told you: We have no record of your mysterious new flying silver Unicorn."

She doubted if there even WAS a flying silver Unicorn, but she didn't let that show. "If he is here, we don't know who he is or where he'll be. Sorry, but there are some things even the Mayor doesn't know. After all, I'm only an elected official. Vote for me again, and I'll do my best to connect with the ponies of this town!"

"Oh. Well... Thanks anyway, Mayor Mare!" Pinkie Pie said as she skipped off, a little less cheerful than usual.

Mayor Mare shrugged, and went back to thinking of titles for the autobiography she'd get time to write some day. The Mayor of... Mayor... Mayor... Mayords? Maids? Mayor Mare 2: Mare Harder? The Autobiography of Unparallelled Mayorosity? No, those were terrible. 'The Mare Wearing the Mayorly Mask' was far better. Then again... Could she top that?

Mayor... Revealed. Mayor Unmasked. Mayor Mare The Mayor and the Town That Needed A Mayor. Mayor Mare And The Night Of A Thousand Mayors. Mayor, Mayor, Mayor. Mayor, Mayor, I'm a Mayor, said Mayor Mayor I'm a Mayor. Mayor Unleashed. Crimson Mayor. Mayor of Mayors. Mayornnaise. Mayornado.

Although you wouldn't be able to tell from looking at her bounce back to Sugarcube Corner at a marginally slower pace than usual, Pinkie Pie was completely lost.

Normally, when a new pony arrived, she'd ask Mayor Mare for that new pony's new home address. She'd spend the day rushing around town and telling certain popular, chatty or well-connected ponies(Applejack, Roseluck, Rarity, and Spike, for example. Applejack would bring some of the Apple Family, a ton of ponies visited Roseluck's flower stand, Rarity had her contacts and clients in town, and Spike seemed to know some ponies no matter where they went) about her Pinkie Pie Welcome Party and how everyone was invited. At night, when that new pony got home, he or she would be greeted with a beautiful surprise party, just for them. The look of surprise and dawning happiness on that pony's face, that always, always made her smile.

But now, she couldn't do that. She couldn't set up a surprise party, because she had no idea where that pony would be.

She stopped, and chuckled. She didn't have to know where he lived, she just had to pop up wherever he was! But... what would she say?

She decided to decide on that when she got there, and she ducked behind a barrel, sitting on her haunches and closing her eyes and smiling. Some ponies (Lyra and Bonbon) wandering past glanced at her curiously, but continued to walk on, and their confusion made this even more fun. She always loved doing this...

She opened an eye, and saw that same barrel. Nothing looked even a little different. "Huh?" She wondered, tilting her head. Ok, [i][i]now[/i][/i] things looked different, but that didn't count. "What's going on?"

She popped her head up, looking to the left, then to the right. Minuette looked at her curiously, and Berry Punch was watching in amusement. It didn't [i]look[/i] like she could be seen from this angle...

She sneaked out from behind her barrel, crawled across the ground, and leapt into the air before angling herself down and diving into a bush like it was a bucket of water.

She could still feel a connection to everywhere else in town that wasn't currently in anypony's line of sight, but... for some reason, the area around that silver Unicorn didn't want to play any games, not even that game she could play with the world when nopony that minded was watching too closely.

It was like... It was like he had some kind of spell that was stopping her from just popping out from behind a bush. Or was it because he was so aware of his surroundings that he knew the position of everything and if she was secretly there all along, he would have noticed by now?

Still, she knew where he was now, so she could just pop up near him... But she also really needed to get back to work, and she didn't want to rush his welcome!

Perhaps... perhaps she could set it up in Sugarcube Corner, and have him go there? But that'd be too obvious and suspicious, and he was from Canterlot like Twilight, and he did have a really similar accent, which meant he was probably super smart like her, so he'd probably see right through it. And it wasn't a real surprise party if it wasn't a surprise!

If he didn't have a house... where could she put his party? She couldn't NOT give that new pony a party. Especially one that looked like that, a pony that could only truly smile when others were watching.

She decided: She'd have to risk it, and have the party at Sugarcube Corner. Wait, no, they were open late that night. Okay, Applejack's barn. A not-much-of-a-surprise surprise party was still better than no party at all.

But first, she really needed to get back to work. Her break was almost over!

Pinkie became a pink blur as she sped towards Sugarcube Corner, with only seconds left before her break officially ended. Besides, the sooner she got there, the sooner she could finish her shift, and then go and decorate Applejack's barn and get it ready for the party! (After asking Applejack first, of course.)

[br]

What looked like the light of an orange-hot glowing meteor filled Mayor Mare's windows, and she turned around in time to see the light vanish, revealing a silver Unicorn with blue eyes, an orange mane, and a black suit. The dapper Unicorn was staring directly at her, and his horn lit up with a blue glow, flashing as he disappeared.

She felt the faint and controlled magical burst as he appeared behind her, her desk between them, and she stared at him in shock, unable to move. His horn lit up again, summoning a bag of golden bits into existence. "Hi, my name is Silver Star, I'm a businesspony from Canterlot, I'm rich, and I'd like to build a vacation home for myself here, while also setting up a wildly successful enchanted item store, vastly improving the local economy... If that's alright with you, of course."

"Okay," She said. stunned.

"Excellent." Silver said, a wide grin spreading across his face. His horn lit up with a bright blue light, a glow that lingered as a blue light flashed beside him, summoning into this world a four-legged being that looked like a Griffon, though one without the cat part, only a Ravenlike bird part. Four golden white-taloned limbs, a coat of black feathers, bright golden eyes, and a gold-lined black top hat with an attached black cape with a purple interior and gold trim. When Mayor Mare leaned to the side, to check if the birdlike being had wings, she saw that it did, and they were big, even when folded. The bird was the size of a normal mare, and it stared directly at her as he teleported himself away in a flash of blue light, leaving the bag of bits behind. She glanced behind her and saw him appear outside her office, Rainbow Dash landing beside him as if she'd just caught up to him. They talked and laughed as they walked on together.

Mayor Mare had never seen anything like that before, or anything like this bird... and yet he'd summoned this being from Celestia-knew-where like it was nothing, nothing at all.

"What does Silver need to sign?" The bird asked with the smooth and motherly voice of a fourty-something mare.

Mayor Mare was no magical expert, but she knew what summoning magic was. She assumed this bird would bring the papers to him, and opened a drawer, checking through the pages she kept ready. She quickly found the land acquisition form and the new business form, and placed them on her desk for the bird with a pleasant smile.

The bird spread her wings as her eyes lit up with a blazing golden light, a blue void appearing beneath her and spreading out as white streams of energy shot through the air, and Mayor Mare recoiled in shock. The sound of a ticking clock became audible, echoing and becoming distorted as echoes built up layers of the same ticking sound until the rapid beat of time's drum degenerated into a constant droning noise.

From the growing blue void, a Silver Star emerged like a boyband emerging from the stage's floor, as if he'd been standing on an invisible elevator that slowly and dramatically rose. When he was through, the blue void vanished anticlimactically, the sound stopping instantly, white trails of energy fading away.

"What just happened?" Mayor Mare asked.

"I breached the boundaries of time and causality, and pulled into this reality a Silver that never was, but could have been. This is the Silver that will sign your documents, the Silver from the potential reality that chose to do so before leaving," She explained, lying. She had actually used an overdramatic illusion spell, and then summoned a Silver replica from the building where he stored the ones that didn't fade away, burst, or get absorbed after completing their tasks. However, she could have performed the feat she described, if Silver desired it.

Mayor Mare was shocked. "Isn't that... a little excessive? The forms are only a few pages long."

"It saves him a few extra seconds of his life, so when he's in this special kind of mood, no." She said, and while her beak didn't change, her eyes smiled. The Silver summoned the documents closer in a flash of blue magic, summoned a quill pen, signed them, and placed them on the Mayor's deck. "Furthermore, it allows the Peacock in a rut to show off."

The two vanished in flashes of blue magic and purple feathers that faded as they fell, and Mayor blinked in surprise. This town's new arrival was certainly an odd one, but her town had a reputation for attracting the oddest ponies in the land. Sometimes, she wondered why. Was it the presence of odd ponies that attracted other odd ponies, or was it something involving the Tartarusmouth this town had been built over? Perhaps, some day, she'd ask Twilight to look into that.

She wondered if she should have mentioned to the silver Unicorn that Pinkie Pie was looking for him... Ah, it didn't matter.

She'd find him soon enough.

[br]

Pinkie Pie got back to Sugarcube corner, rushing to the desk and sitting on it with a welcoming smile for a few moments, like a spring slowly coiling and building up energy. When she was sure nopony would show up, she practically flew up the building's stairs, grabbing her Welcome Wagon and flying out of Sugarcube Corner.

She then flew back into Sugarcube Corner, leaving a plate full of cupcakes on the desk, a sign in the center telling all who saw it to "Just take one!". She'd pay the cakes back for them later.

[br]

"And while I do like a challenge, it feels like WAY too many new temple designers just put spikes everywhere and call it a day." Silver said as he and Rainbow took what was – for them – a leisurely trot through the center of town, towards the land he'd purchased. "A room full of spikes to avoid is a slalom course, not a real temple. And usually, if you want puzzles, you'll need to seek out dedicated puzzle temples, which, far too often, have only one puzzle."

"Yeah. I mean, rooms like that are easy for me, but you know what's [i]really[/i] annoying? The ones where they marked where you're supposed to go and where you're supposed to jump and turn with coins or glowy trails."

"Sweet Celestia, YES. The occasional arrow or arrow-shaped object is fine, but constant glowing trails? Where's the choice? The thought? The moment-to-moment decision making that truly makes for good actiony-section temple design? Why bother with a temple's room if a Magic Golem scripted with just 'Follow the marked path' could follow the given instructions and complete it faster and more efficiently than a pony ever could?

A pink blur sped across the land and stopped right in front of the two ponies, her tail tugging along what looked like a treasure chest on wheels, around the size of a pony-drawn carriage, and the two stopped. The wheels were wooden and undecorated, but the rims were white with a spiralling red pattern, like a lollipop. The chest was a reddish pink, and on the sides, a blue bush on either side, a somewhat ornate banner of light pink along the top. On the front and back, a yellow half-star with seven rounded points. An image of two blue balloons and one yellow balloon was emblazoned on the center of the half star, and on the front, on the star's top point, there was a yellow-outlined big red button just begging to be pressed. The pink pony pressed the button with a hoof, creating a horn sound that reminded one of a clown's nose, and a mechanical whirring could be heard as the chest's upper half split down the top and opened up.

Like dolphins breaching the water's surface, only faster, stuff shot out of the contraption's rising central column: long brass horns, pastel-coloured flags on sticks, powerful confetti cannons shaped like spiral-patterned candles on cakes, confetti cannons shaped like spiral-patterned tubes, a tiny cuboid baking oven, and two rows of confectionery delights. On the top row, cupcakes with brightly coloured icing in different colours and flavours, and on the bottom row, small pies.

The flags waved around randomly, the horns automatically playing a cheerful tune, and Silver's mind immediately drew up diagrams full of the gears and pulleys necessary for him to build an exact replica, only to be distracted from the fading imaginary blueprints by a bouncy pink Earth Pony bouncing across his field of vision.

"Welcome, welcome, welcome!"

She hopped back the other way, now on her hind legs.

"A fine welcome to you!"

She was suddenly right next to him, her upper body stretched out to somewhere beyond his field of vision, and as he flinched in shock, she pulled a hat out from... somewhere, putting the hat on his head, balancing it atop his hair. It was a black cone hat, with half of a white lotus flower-like decoration and a blue-outlined orange visor. He looked up at the hat in confusion, then admired its perfect colouration.

Welcome, welcome, welcome! I say, how do you do?!

She pulled a horn out from somewhere and blew a triumphant note right next to him, somehow stretching the horn out as he dodged it, looking up in shock.

"Welcome, welcome, welcome! I say, hip hip hooray!"

She zipped out and reappeared behind him, hopping around him on her hind legs as she hit a massive red drum with pink-clad Massive Drum Sticks, and he began to find this walking anomaly funny.

"Welcome, welcome, welcome,"

She hopped along again, crouched down, and leapt up.

"To Ponyville todaaaaaaaay!"

She slid towards him on her bent hind legs, forelegs outstretched, a smile on her face. When the song ended, her smile grew bigger, and Silver blinked in shock.

"Well ok then," Silver said quietly.

"Wait for iiiiit!" The pink pony said gleefully.

The cube of a baking oven's door burst open, launching compressed air, confetti squares, and confetti spirals towards Silver, who yelped in shock, a field of orange energy spreading out from his hooves to envelop everything in five meters. The confetti stopped in mid air, and when Rainbow jumped back from what she assumed was an orange shockwave, she stopped, too.

Pinkie Pie in front of him was forced to stay immobile and grinning. "Sho, wh't'do y'u th'nk?" She forced through her teeth with a good deal of effort, yet she didn't seem mad or even a little bothered by it.

"Sorry, sorry." Silver said with an embarrassed chuckle, his orange aura of momentum magic shrinking back into his hooves, acting as if he'd let out a loud fart, rather than accidentally discharging a set of immensely powerful weapons. "First time I've ever seen a literal welcome wagon!"

As soon as she could move, the pink earth pony yelled "Come to Applejack's barn at 6pm!" and rushed off to who knew where.

As soon as she could move, Rainbow Dash looked right at his horseshoes. "What are thooose?!" Rainbow asked loudly, pointing at them with both hooves.

"Evidence that I'm the greatest enchantment expert of all time." Silver boasted. "I call them The Silver Shoes. They allow me to absorb and redirect kinetic force, and utilize it in its purest form: Energy."

Rainbow had a pretty good idea of what he was saying, but she decided to ask for clarification anyway. "In Equestrian?" She wondered.

"You know how a ball moves in the direction it's kicked when somepony kicks it?" Silver asked. Rainbow nodded. "If it was wearing these, it wouldn't move until it wanted to, no matter how many times you kicked it. It would absorb the force, and store it. Like filling up a water pistol. Then it would move in whichever direction it wanted, whenever it wanted, with as much of the force it built up from multiple kicks as it wanted. As if the water is fuel for a magic airship engine."

"Cool. What about that thing it just did, where it froze everything?" Rainbow asked.

"Not everything, sound waves and air could still move. Its area mode isn't at 100% efficiency just yet, but I'm working on it." Silver admitted. "It started absorbing the kinetic energy of everything in an area around me. You could probably force your way out of its range if you wanted, I hear you're pretty fast."

"I guess you could say that." Rainbow said, grinning.

"Cool. Unrelated, but they also let me make a field in which the temperature is locked at exactly ten degrees, and this field can grow up to two miles in diameter. Its the standard field spell with a temperature designation, but I multiplied its expansion speed by four. Sure, it retracts five times slower than it should, but it's worth it." Silver said. "So, who was that?"

"That's Pinkie Pie, she's one of my best friends. She runs Sugarcube Corner, they sell cakes and stuff."

"Is there any particular reason why she said to visit a barn, of all places?"

"Guess it was the only place open tonight." She shrugged.

"Huh. Well, if you want to see how great I am at building homes fast, you can watch me build my new home."

That didn't exactly sound like fun, but... "How fast?" Rainbow wondered.

"If it takes me longer than two minutes, I'll buy you a cupcake." Silver gloated.

"You're on!"

Silver landed in the center of the land his document-signing clone had bought for him with grace and style, a pretty nice place with a pleasant yellow thatched-roof cottage surrounded by verdant grass, a few big trees, and the odd patch of pink flowers. It was a peaceful, idyllic scene, and Silver glanced back at the camera to smirk as he raised a hoof, spawning into existence a pocketwatch. His horn lit up with a blazing blue aura, he tossed the stopwatch to a surprised Rainbow Dash, and his raised hoof struck the ground like an industrial press as a militaristic drum beat began playing, his hoof glowing and absorbing the strike's power.

His horn lit up with a brilliant blue light that intensified as forms of pure magic appeared around him, hawks and falcons and what appeared to be ponies, only with near-identical bushy tails and foxlike faces with pointed snouts and pointed ears. When Rainbow Dash hit the stopwatch's button and started counting the time, their solid blue coloration shattered outwards in a shower of magical sparks, revealing the assorted blue and black and white hues for the birds and the different combinations of white, red, light blue, and orange for the fox-ponies. As though they'd rehearsed this, each one spread out to surround the area, and Silver began to sing.

[i]Make a home, make a home

Five, six, seven, eight

All alone, I'll make a home

Five, six, seven, eight[/i]

Slowly and dramatically, the ground around the silver Unicorn faintly vibrating, sounding almost like a drum roll, unrefined ore in liquid form began to emerge from the ground, arcing through the air before forming in a singular puddle like pancake mix getting poured into a pan. Like a stack of pancakes, layer upon layer of six foot by six foot metal walls and glass walls and metal spikes were formed by his will. Each one was picked up by the brightly-coloured magical lights of different birds and the same-hued burned-orange glows of the foxponies and thrown through the air like swarms of soaring spears and spinning shuriken, landing perfectly in the ground where needed.

[i]

First foundations, then the walls

Building rooms and building halls

This horn's light ain't just for show

Watch real closely, here we go!

[/i]

[i]

Make a home, make a home

Five, six, seven, eight

All alone, I'll make a home

Five, six, seven, eight

[/i]

His tail flicking around to the front of his body, he flung forward a smooth steel ball hidden within his tail hair, the ball spinning through the air as it took a sudden sharp curve and struck the ground, still spinning. It tore at the grassy earth, uprooting grass and earth and accelerating, the ground around it warping and twisting like a thin carpet getting disturbed and rendered uneven by movement atop it. Spiralling fissures split the ground and swallowed grass whole, moles and insects fleeing the earth in terrified lines, cracks sealing up with rapidly-hardening mud as the ground became harder than stone.

[i]

Build it wide and build it tall

One home to surpass them all

Here I'll reap what I now sow

Watch real closely, here we go[/i]

Scraping his hoof against the ground to build up glowing orange momentum, then slamming it into the ground, he launched himself into the air, posing on his side. His horn launched a flare of blue magic into the air, which exploded like a firework, bursting into a blue image of a blue five-pointed star coated in orange flames. He landed like somepony who had practiced this before, showers of magical blue sparks falling down to temporarily strengthen the bodies of anyone they touched. Fox Ponies and Birds under his command rushed forwards as blurs of speed, kicking up clouds of dust in their rapid construction. In mere seconds,

[i]

Make a home, oh, make a home

Five, six, seven, eight

All alone, I'll make a home

Five, six, seven, eight[/i]

He glanced back at his building and noticed that they'd shaped this building into a massive sculpture of his own head, the house inside it, and he frowned, because it wasn't big enough. His horn lit up, designating a point at the center of the building and turning it into a blue magical cube that grew larger every second, quickly engulfing a quarter of the building and stopping. He frowned harder and tried to make it bigger, but only succeeded in wobbling it from side to side. He rolled his eyes and the cube collapsed in on itself, taking the piece of building with it. His horn flashing blue, a blue portal appeared in the air, a colossal metal steamroller crashing down onto the building to crush it completely.

[i]Metal walls fly off the ground

Hold them up and bring them down

This horn's light ain't just for show

Watch real closely, here we go[/i]

Seemingly controlled by his will, rather than his magic's blue glow, metal walls levitated themselves into the air and erected themselves a solid floor and outer wall, slamming down one six foot by six foot square of metal at a time, as each one clicked together like the whole thing was magnetized.

Upon the crushed house, he cast a fire-and-forget repair spell, the ruins of his home reshaping themselves into a two-storey cube-shaped house with metallic-blue metal walls and orange windows. He began to dance and sing around the forming building as orange glass shaped itself on the building's top, making a three-dimensional five-pointed star held up by metallic-blue metal rods, a glass star with a small gold-plated steel core levitating and rotating in the center.

[i]Look at me, just look at me!

I'm the greatest, can't you see?

I, Silver, am proud to say

This home was built in just one day

Aquilla finally caught up with him and landed beside him like a pet owl, admiring the building, then she snapped her claws and warped large metal shipping containers in through gold portals. Fox ponies began opening the containers and telekinetically taking out swords, shields, hammers, helmets, axes, whips, steamrollers the size of swords, swords the size of steamrollers, and a kitchen sink.

He glanced back at his building and noticed that he'd somehow shaped this building into a massive sculpture of his own head, the house inside it, and he frowned. His horn lit up, designating a point at the center of the building and turning it into a blue magical cube that grew larger every second, quickly engulfing a quarter of the building and stopping. He growled and tried to make it bigger, but only succeeded in wobbling it from side to side. He rolled his eyes and the cube collapsed in on itself, taking the piece of building with it. His horn flashing blue, a blue portal appeared in the air, a colossal metal steamroller crashing down onto the building to crush it completely, so he could magically reform the crumpled mess into a fairly normal guilding.

[/i]Bow to me, I'm here at last

Step back if you can't go fast

Forward back and spin around

This home shall be the best in town[i]

The fox ponies arranged themselves into groups of four, their horns lighting up. The eyes of birds flashed as they converged upon summoned palanquins, falling into the multicolored magical grips of the fox ponies, Silver leaping towards the chair in the center and posing.

[i]Make a home, make a home

WE'RE SKIPPING THIS PART, IT BORES ME TO THE BONE.[/i]

His sudden outburst surprised the birds and foxes, but they rolled with it, musicians speeding their movements up with magic to rush bars out at 340 BPM before returning to their previous pace as Silver's magic bodily picked up one female red fox-pony, dipped her tail in a summoned can of white paint, and used her to paint his building's walls grey.

[i]With this brush of hairs so fine

With this art, I make it mine

This horn's light ain't just for show

Watch real closely, here we go[/i]

The star finished forming, and a wide sign formed on the building's front. His horn lighting up with a blazing blue light, magic glow moving faster than his head, he fired short, sharp laser shots that carved the shop's name into the house with incredible speed and precision.

The building's title...

uiMagical Masterpieces

Expert Enchantments, Superior Sundries, and Quality Consulting

A Subsidiary of Silver Star Enterprises/i/u

When it was over, he blew a gust of air up at his red-hot horn with a smirk, and sat on his haunches, admiring his work with forehooves outstretched. His birds and fox ponies vanished in bursts of multicolored magical light and blue magical flame.

[i]I built this home, I built this home

Yes, I did

With my friends, I built this home

Yes, I did![/i]

Silver punched the ground and formed an earth podium to stand atop, and he began to sing solo.

[i]While I'm hardly one to boast

T'was easier than making toast

All I need to strive to be

Is the best me that I... can... be![/i]

Aquilla finally caught up with him and landed beside him like a pet owl, admiring the building, then snapping her claws and warping large metal shipping containers in through gold portals.

And miles away, in a bush at the edge of town, watching through pairs of binoculars made from leaves and gems, the jaws of three Diamond Dogs dropped. Then, their binoculars fell to the ground. Slowly, their heads turned to face each other and wide, animalistic grins formed on their faces.

00

The walls were coated in brilliant crystal, and the floor was covered by a purple carpet. Twilight Sparkle stood in the center of the room, her horn alight, and she was reading a purple book. Was being the operative word, for when Spike opened the door and excitedly told her Pinkie told Roseluck to tell him to tell Twilight about the new arrival in town and his party and how it was tonight, her book fell dramatically like a glass of wine. She then caught it in mid-air before it could dramatically hit the floor, gently floating it over to her bedside table to read later.

"Hold on, Spike. Silver Unicorn, pointy orange mane with an orange flame at the front, with a yellow star on it, blue eyes, a constellation of orange and yellow stars for a Cutie Mark?" Twilight asked hopefully.

"Yeah, with a black suit. You know Silver?" Spike asked in happy surprise.

"I know iof/i him!" She said gleefully, opening up her closet and looking at the few hung-up articles of clothing she owned before becoming a princess on the left, the outfits she'd gained for princess stuff after becoming a princess on the right. "With all the breakthroughs he's made in the field, field magic, and the field of magical fielding, you could fill more than a hundred books with all he's discovered! And I have all two hundred!"

"Two hundred books?" Spike said, wondering what kind of pony had that kind of free time. "I didn't think he was the sciency type-"

"But he is!" Twilight said happily, turning to face Spike, utterly nerding out.

"Wait, we're thinking of the same Silver Star here, right?" Spike asked curiously. "The one who lives in the Silver Spire?"

"And invented a new type of transformative spell, yes."

"Seven-time Grandmaster of the royal Duelling Circuit, and the owner and founder of his own way cooler magical duelling circuit? One of the greatest magical duellists of all time, ever? The guy who shaved the Royal Duelling Circuit's owner's head with his own spellblade at Maxfest 2010?!"

"Yes," Twilight said, considering that less important than the other stuff. "He also single-hoofedly revolutionized the field of summoning magic, created over a thousand spells, and made his own chain of enchanted item stores all over Equestria."

"And he made those magic arenas that'll let anypony fight temporal echoes of retired Magical Duellists in their prime, and temporal echoes of duellists that are still around now, but different! He's the reason why Rocky Road '02 VS Rocky Road '12 happened!" Spike enthused.

"And best of all... When he attended the Royal Canterlot Academy of Magical Duelling, he took on their unbeatable Impossible Test and he passed it with flying colors! He actually passed it!"

"Wait, Duel Academy? He's one of those jerks?" Spike asked skeptically.

"That's not the point, Spike." She said with a good-natured smiling eye-roll. "Name one other pony who passed an impossible test!"

Face blank, Spike pointed a claw at Twilight. "You."

She smiled and looked away. "One other pony ibesides/i me."

"Uh... Nopony?" Spike guessed, shrugging.

"Exactly, Spike. And nopony knows how he did it! He didn't have his magical system jump-started by the shock from a sonic rainboom, he didn't tap into some incredible potential power he was born with, he only had his wits and his determination to win, and he outsmarted a test nopony in over a thousand years has ever been able to pass!"

"Did he cheat?" Spike guessed.

"That was the first thing the Academy staff checked!" Twilight said in excitement, horn lighting up with a beautiful purple light as she got her starry blue Grand Galloping Gala outfit from her closet and compared it to her pink and yellow Princess Coronation outfit. "They didn't find any evidence of cheating, and when they brought the test's creator over to verify it, he confirmed the test really was beaten. Which means he really beat an impossible test!"

"Or he cheated so well, the Academy staff couldn't tell." Spike snarked.

"That'd be even MORE impressive! How do you tamper with the prized test of the second-best magical school in Canterlot and not get caught?" She asked as she put the blue outfit back. "Right after the news came out, Celestia sent investigators of her own to check if any of the academy staff had altered the test themselves, or if something had been done to the timeline, or Silver, or the test's creator, and no matter how hard they looked, they couldn't find any evidence of foul play! His victory was as legitimate as it was unbelievable!"

She teleported the dress onto herself, and checked herself over in the mirror.

"Wait, you're gonna wear iclothes/i for this guy?" Spike said in surprise.

"Absolutely!" Twilight declared.

"You know you outrank him, right?" Spike asked, raising an eyebrow. "You've saved Equestria over a dozen times!"

"That doesn't make his contributions to the scientific community any less significant." Twilight said, smiling, and she stuck her head into her closet, her voice beginning to echo out. "To say nothing of his accomplishments in Canterlot, the collusion and corruption he's brought to light, the information he's revealed, and the political reforms he's campaigned for. And the schools! Did you know he's set up multiple magical schools across Equestria, giving what I hear is some of the best education in the country, and he's asking less than half of the standard admission price in return, even working out monthly payment plans for the poorest families that stretch decades in advance? He's even made night schools, for the ponies that're too busy with farmwork or vocational training during the day, and boarding schools, for the ponies that lived too far away for a proper education until now! And magazine subscription services allowing ponies to teach themselves the fields of magic AND science, regardless of time or location!"

"He didn't invent boarding schools or night schools." Spike pointed out.

"No, but he made the best ones yet." Twilight said, wondering if some kind of headgear would be appropriate. She had that crown of flowers from her coronation in kept fresh in magical stasis, she had that multicoloured umbrella hat Pinkie gave her a while ago, and... She didn't really have any other hats, she had a nice yellow sun hat she wasn't sure if she ever wore, and... she didn't really own a lot of hats, now that she thought of it. She put the flowers back and started using magic to levitate her mane and curl it into place.

"Alright, just don't act like Rarity did when she was about to meet Prince Blueblood." Spike said, rolling his eyes while a little sad. He doubted he could handle seeing Twilight act like that.

Twilight laughed. "I won't, Spike."

Spike's eyes suddenly widened. "I remember where I heard his name!"

"Really? Where?" Twilight asked curiously.

"I was at the Comic Book store in Canterlot!"

"Really?" Twilight asked. "Oh, right, he makes those interactive comics."

"The coolest ones ever! But that's not where I remember hearing his name. I heard somepony say she got his latest album, and she hated it."

"What was it?"

"Not as good as his last album."

"I mean, what type of music does he make?"

"I have no idea, she just kept complaining about how he changed his musical style to something she didn't like."

00

For Silver Star, seeing Applejack again after all these years was like getting a magically-accelerated steel rod launched at terminal velocity right into his soul. She'd gotten so big now! She was a fully-grown mare, she was right where she wanted to be in life, she'd achieved her dreams, her farm was doing well... she was a fully-grown mare now and he wasn't around to see any of it happen. He wondered if he did the right thing by moving to Canterlot all those years ago, despite all the good he'd done since then telling him the answer he already knew. He... he wanted to hug her, right then and right there, and not care who saw him or what she said to him in confusion. He wanted to spill everything on the spot, but he knew there was a party, or rather, a barn full of ponies nearby, and if they heard Applejack yell "Wot 'n' tarnation?!" and start yelling at him over what he'd done or hadn't done or whatever, they'd exit the barn and watch, it would be awkward for everypony involved, his cover would be blown, and the party would be ruined. No, he just had to keep it all bottled up for the night, spend the night staying awake planning out what to say, then head to Applejack's in the morning to talk it out alone. She still woke up at six like the rest of the Apple Family, right?

He was suddenly very grateful for his ability to mask his emotions, for the orange Earth Pony didn't suspect a thing. He'd say it made up for all that time spent as a foal wondering if there was something wrong with him, but his outer serenity had paid for itself on cons a thousand times over. As it was, the farmer merely greeted him politely when he showed up on her farm, leading him to her barn.

Just as Applejack got ready to dramatically throw the barn doors open, Silver Star had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen. He had noticed faint outlines of several hoofprints in the dirt... Many ground-bound ponies, one young Alicorn that was likely Twilight, plus any number of fliers. Judging from the way one set of footprints bounced straight up and down on all fours rather than trotting normally, it was likely that Pinkie Pie was there, too. He had heard rumours about the Elements of Harmony, but nothing concrete, nothing that could truly be relied upon, save the basics: Pinkie hopped and pronked instead of walking, the yellow one was shy, the blue one was the fastest, Twilight was so powerful that she broke records by glancing in their general direction, and so on. He made a mental note to request full files on all of them at the first opportunity. In any case, he had reason to believe that The Elements of Harmony were in that barn, along with a significant number of other ponies.

Applejack threw the barn doors open, light illuminating the darkest corners of the surprisingly-well-built wooden red barn coated in party decoratio-

"SURPRISE!" Six ponies and one Dragon and a bunch of other less-important ponies suddenly called out.

In the center of the room, there was a long table upon which a pink tablecloth with curly white cloudlike lining rested, and there was a large white-frosted cake lined with strawberries, pink frosting, and with an apple-shaped and apple-sized sculpture made of pink frosting in the center, complete with a stalk and single green leaf all made of sugar. Around the cake, they had a few large plates piled high with square chocolate brownies, smaller pieces of vanilla and chocolate cake, two large flasks containing apple cider and several smaller glass cups, and four large clear bowls of sweet and salted popcorn. A few blue and yellow balloons were tied to the table's edges, and on the ceiling, a large banner was displayed, displaying 'WELCOME TO PONYVILLE'.

In front of the party table, there was a pink pony, looking absolutely overjoyed. To her left, there was What's-Her-Name, the shy yellow Pegasus who was a model for a while(Not that he paid much attention to fashion... and now, he wished he'd at least bothered to try and remember her name) and a white Unicorn he recognized as Rarity(He certainly paid attention to the business world, and he'd heard of the self-taught fashionista from Ponyville who had managed to get several influential ponies on her side, making a name for herself despite her humble beginnings. He liked her, she was cool.). On Pinkie's right, there was Twilight Sparkle, Alicorn Princess and Element of Magic and general all-around chosen one, who had a pleasant smile on her face, and next to her, there was a small baby dragon, the one who saved the Crystal Empire that one time... Spike? Behind them, there was a bunch of unimportant ponies in the background, including one exceedingly unimportant reddish mare with a redder Pinkie-ish mane and tail.

This place certainly looked festive enough for a-

He blinked, and Pinkie suddenly popped up from below his field of vision and interrupted his thoughts. "Hi, I'm Pinkie Pie, and I threw this party just for you! Isn't this exciting? Are you excited? Cause I'm excited. I've never been so excited! Well, except for the time when I went-"

She suddenly gasped so hard she floated up for a moment, due to the intake of air.

"-but I mean really, what could top that?" She asked happily, landing on her hooves.

Silver backed away in shock, mind reeling, struggling to keep his face muscles neutral as flashes of information surged through his mind. The words and thoughts about all this visual information was like a tsunami crashing over his consciousness.

And at the same time, his finely-honed danger sense was screaming. This was a barn full of ponies! And he didn't know anywhere near enough about any of them! How was he supposed to survive a party in an entirely new town without good intel on the place's culture, attendees, or even its major players? What if he said the wrong thing and embarassed himself? What if he ruined his reputation and his chances of ever being accepted here?

His horn lit up, and he teleported himself away, landing somewhere on Applejack's farm, balanced atop a tree branch that shouldn't have been able to support his weight.

He slowly sucked in a breath and jumped down, landing on what wasn't reasurringly solid ground that brought back memories of the dry, cracked earth of home, but instead fresh, fertile, loamy soil. Farm soil. It would have to do, he thought to himself, as if to deny how oddly calming the texture and coolness of the earth felt on his hooves.

He pressed his lips together and let out a slow and carefully controlled breath out of a tiny hole he made with his mouth, counting up through every prime number in his head while humming one of his favourite tunes in reverse.

"Are you alright?" Twilight asked, teleporting in with an audibly purple flash of magic.

He let out a low yelp of surprise, then covered it up with a nervous chuckle. She sounded concerned, he realized.

"I'm fine, I just..." Silver looked away dramatically. "I don't think you'd like hearing this."

"Hearing what?" Twilight pressed.

He turned his head back towards her with an embarassed expression. "I thought I was going to be in that barn for a while, so I thought I should let out a fart first."

She paused for a moment, as if thinking. "Um..."

Silver assumed she was about to question why she couldn't smell anything, but wasn't quite sure how to ask without it sounding strange. "Well I was going to, but then I came up with what I thought was a solution for some puzzle I saw a while ago, but then I realized it wouldn't work, and then you showed up- Let's change the subject before this gets any stranger," He decided. "I know first impressions tend to be important as important as they can be misleading, but this really isn't how I imagined my first encounter with Twilight Sparkle would go."

"Really? How did you think it was going to go?" Twilight asked curiously.

Silver was torn. This is why he hated going into parties without proper intel! He didn't even know what Twilight liked hearing...

Should he go for the funny option, and say he didn't expect her to interrogate him over his flatulence, put her on the spot for how weird this was, and get her to want to change the subject as much as he did? Or should he try to change the subject himself, and reveal some sort of pre-held belief (He couldn't currently remember the official word for that, but he was sure such a word existed) that'd either make her like him or hate him, or should he say some other third thing he hadn't yet decided on? It certainly couldn't be that first thing. The term fart had already been said too many times for his liking today anyway. He'd have to say something he assumed she'd like hearing, and in an honest manner, on the off chance that the rumor he'd heard about Alicorns having an innate sense that detects the Six Equestrian Virtues (Loyalty, Honesty, you know the drill) and their opposite, negative counterparts was correct.

Perhaps if he just kept talking and saying things, he'd eventually say something she visibly liked.

"I was sure we'd talk about magic, scientific discoveries, art, culture, what scientific advancements we're working on, current events, the world as a whole, and so much more." He announced with a slight shade of hopefulness to his voice. "The things we'd achieved in our time, and the things we wanted to achieve. What we wanted for ourselves, and what we wanted for Equestria."

She seemed a tad impressed. "I'd like that," Twilight said, and smiled.

Her smile was so bright, so pure, and her eyes were so trusting, so genuine... Silver found himself feeling like if he went into this party with her, everything would be fine.

Well, he thought to himself, you can't make an omelette if you stay out of the kitchen.

"Let's go back to the party." Silver said, his horn lighting up with a bright blue light. Showing off, he reared up and flexed his chest muscles before slamming a hoof into the ground, an orange shockwave rippling along the ground to solidify around them.

Before either of their eyes noticed, they were back in the barn, and visible afterimages of both ponies were trailing behind them and lasting longer than they should have before fading away.

"How did you-" Twilight gasped.

"Silver Shoes, just three-ninety-nine bits!" Silver boasted, tapping the ground and launching a piece of popcorn on the food table on the other side of the room ten feet into the air, where his magical glow caught it and sent it flying towards his open mouth like a meteor. When it entered his mouth, he shut it and swallowed the popcorn whole. "Sorry about disappearing like that, everypony, I thought there was something I'd forgotten. But there wasn't."

Meanwhile, Aquilla remained at his home, completely forgotten by Silver as she ordered fox-ponies and birds around, having them put everything in his house away properly.

In the Barn, Silver decided to talk to Pinkie. "You know, there's something I wanted to say to you earlier today, but you rushed off before I could get the chance." He admitted.

"What's that?" Pinkie wondered happily, tilting her head to the side. The idea that this might be something unpleasant didn't even seem to occur to her. After all, how could anypony not like her? She was loveable.

"You. Are. ADORABLE!" Silver declared happily, a big dumb grin spreading across his face, to the surprise of many ponies, Twilight and Rarity included. "Look at you, you're like a big pink puppy!"

Silver raised a hoof towards her mane, but then pulled it back and with a shy smile, hesitantly asked, "Ah... may I?"

"Sure!" She said happily, closing her eyes.

He stroked her mane like she was a cute little dog, and she giggled, because it tickled. His hoof travelled toward the back of her ear, and she began tapping her right hindhoof against the floor like a dog.

'Oh, um, you like animals?" Fluttershy asked curiously.

"I love animals!" Silver declared happily, still stroking Pinkie. "And you're so CUUUTE!" Silver squealed. "Who's the cutest pink pony in the whole world! You are, yes you are!"

"Okay, that's enough," Rainbow said, flying over to break it up, "This is getting weird."

Silver's horn lit up and he formed a portal beneath him, casually falling through it and out of a forming vertical portal that put Pinkie between himself and Rainbow Dash, and he stroked Pinkie's mane harder while staring right at her, causing her to perform what those in another world called a memeface. "A party involving me isn't weird until there are seventh-dimensional birds flying around violating causality and dimensional boundaries like they're casual suggestions!" He declared overdramatically.

"Did he just say..." Twilight wondered. She paused, as if trying to remember something she'd read about long ago.

"Still, I must admit, this is the first time somepony threw a party for me." Silver shrugged.

Pinkie Pie gasped in absolute horror, pulling away with a look of clear shock upon her face, startling Twilight out of her train of thought. "Nopony's ever thrown a party for you?!" She asked, as if he'd said he'd never had friends before or he'd never eaten baked goods before, or even worse, both.

"Have you lived your whole life under a rock?" Rainbow Dash asked doubtfully.

"From a certain point of view." He shrugged. He loved saying that. It sounded deep, it sounded dramatic, and while he'd lived his foalhood under a metaphorical one, he had also lived under the literal rock that was the moon, its pale light illuminating his nocturnal study sessions. "I've been to parties held in honor of others, I've been to parties held in honor of the party's hosts, I've thrown fundraisers and parties to celebrate my most recent victories, but I've never been to a party somepony else threw for me. So, is there a book I should read on this, or...?"

In the background, Rainbow Dash's face swiftly met her hoof and Spike's face met his claw, as if they were both sarcastically thinking, 'Great, another one'. Fluttershy glanced away with an unreadable expression, idly kicking the ground with a lazy and relaxed hoof. Applejack chuckled ruefully, her thoughts along the same lines, entering the barn and closing it behind her.

Suddenly, Silver seemed to notice the song. He leapt into the air like he was somewhat filled with helium, floating onto a shocked dancefloor to perform an odd dance, rearing onto his hind legs and waving his straightened forelegs asynchronously, yet still in time with the beat.

He danced, and as she watched his mesmerising movements, Twilight noticed Rarity moving closer to her, and so did Spike. "That's Silver Star!" The white Unicorn whispered like a gleeful schoolfoal.

"I know!" The plum-lavender Unicorn merrily whispered back, like an excited but less excitable older sister, while an expression of disgust formed on Silver's face.

"Have you seen his art? Have you heard of his work with the New Art Foundation?" Rarity asked eagerly.

"His what?" Twilight asked.

"He's a rising star in the art world, he favours a revolutionary new form of Pop Art that lays the shallowness of art-critic society bare. And the New Art Foundation... Despite its uncreative name, it's truly wonderful. It's a charity he created, it supports young artists around the world trying to make a name for themselves, setting them up all up with teachers and critics while they train, and setting them up with fanbases if they earn his seal of approval, asking only a fraction of what a similar organization would take as payment, since it's all paid for by donators. For some, he offers housing with free nutritional meals, even ponies on hoof to make sure they all eat well, even those that occasionally forget to eat."

"Wait." Spike said doubtfully, popping up between them. Seeing Rarity act like this was the last straw. Mostly because he hated seeing Rarity act like this, even if it was less odd than seeing Twilight almost fully fangirl over somepony he thought only he'd fangirl- fanBOY over. "So this guy just showed up one morning in Canterlot, strolled into the second best college in Canterlot, beat an unbeatable test, became rich overnight, made a charity that probably loses a ton of money every day, became a famous artist, scientist, duellist, and musician overnight?"

Silver teleported into existence behind him. "You forgot 'Voted most eligible bachelor of the month' by fourteen magazines twenty one months in a row."

Spike's clawed palm swiftly met his face, eyes shut, and he wiped his palm down his face as if wiping away the urge to scream, leaving behind only annoyed exhaustion. "Can he FLY?!" He asked pointedly.

"I'm not sure if it still counts as flying if you don't have wings," Rainbow said, glancing away, then looked back at Spike, who looked like he was about to scream. "But yeah, he flew in from Canterlot this morning."

Spike's clawed palm met his face once again. "Fluttershy, what do you know about him?" He asked, fully expecting her to start talking about some insane animal-conservation project."

"Actually, I've, um... never heard of him before today." Fluttershy admitted.

"You like animals, right?" Silver asked. "One time, during a lunch break, I went to Zebrica and whipped its local law enforcement into shape. They actually do stuff about the common poachers over there now."

"That's nice." Fluttershy said uncertainly. Sure, it was nice, but why did animals get one lunch break's worth of effort when artists got so much more?

"Great, some ponies are still sane. What about you, Pinkie?" Spike asked, then noticed Pinkie wasn't there any more. "...Pinkie?"

He looked around quickly and spotted her cheering Silver on with a crowd of seven ponies as Silver lifted two pint-jugs of lemonade and the entire punch bowl with his magic, cups spinning around his body as twin spiralling streams of red liquid rose from the bowl, arcing gracefully through the air. His horn glowing brighter, he picked up every cupcake with pink icing except for one, leaving that sole one behind and tossing the rest into his mouth, inelegantly jamming them in and closing his mouth a little, then sending the swirling yellow and red liquids into his mouth to drill through the baked blockage and pour down his throat, soaking the rest of the blockage and helping him swallow it all down. The crowd cheered at the display, and Twilight looked away, while Rarity raised a hoof to block Silver's head from her sight, so she could focus solely on the mesmerising sight of how he moved liquids.

"I'd always imagined him acting differently at parties." Rarity admitted.

Spike looked at the Silver drinking, and then he turned his head and saw Silver behind him once again. He looked back to the partying Silver, and back to the one with them. And back to the partying one.

"There are two of you?" Spike asked, turning around and seeing an empty space. "You guys saw him too, right?"

Two Silvers appeared on either side of Twilight. "Magic!" They announced in unison.

"Why can't I tell what spell you've used to make those?" Twilight asked, peering closer at one's horn.

"Old family secret," That Silver explained, while the other wandered off.

Rarity chased after him. "Silver Star?" She asked hopefully. "I wanted to talk to you about your charity, and your art, how-"

"I'm probably not the best pony to ask. To be honest, I'm more interested in the sciences than the arts." Silver admitted, because he really didn't want to talk about his charity. While that charity existed as an extension of his love of great art, it also provided a handy way for ponies to put money in his pocket without it going on the traditional books. If there was a pony whose act needed to be cleaned up, but the opportunities for a properly brilliant con wasn't there, simply showing up and making an offer that couldn't be refused made the perfect first step for bad individuals suddenly wanting to go good.

"But... with all you've done in the art world, and the charity you created-"

"It's my money, and it's my charity and generosity that created the foundation ponies more interested in the arts than me manage, but like I said before, I'm more of a scientist. That's why I have a similar, better charity for young scientists." He shrugged. "I'm alright with others loving art more than me, because to me, in its current state, art's just a hobby."

"A hobby? But your art is so provocative, so powerful, so intense... How can it be a mere hobby?"

"Simply put, I'm really good at stuff." Silver said. He paused for a moment, as if he considered that a great one-liner, and when that did nothing, he answered honestly. "Well, any joke gets old if you hear it once a day, every day. Even a joke as funny as spitting in the face of all the art world's pseudointellectuals and watching them lick their faces clean and ask for seconds. I create 'Art' occasionally, so this joke, for me, at least, has yet to get old. Unlike the jokes calling themselves art critics. Those got old years ago."

"I... don't follow." Rarity said uncertainly.

"I hate my Pop Art almost as much as I hate how the low-effort garbage I made one morning out of idle curiosity turned out to have an actual name, genre, and cult following that found itself injected with swarms of posers when I unknowingly inserted myself into it. I hate how the real art I make under fake names is ignored while the smeared canvas excretions I make under this name are critically acclaimed. I hate it almost as much as I hate what Canterlot frauds have done to the modern art world in general. It's not art to throw together some pieces of garbage and sit in a fancy chair, throwing popcorn into your mouth in an ever-more-forceful parabolic arc, watching posers trying to virtue-signal their Art Critic level call a literal pile of garbage something 'deep and beautiful' something some 'common laypony peasant fool could never truly appreciate', unaware that mentally, they are those fools, fools trying to impress other fools with how enlightened they can pretend to be. Have you ever heard the tragedy of 'The Alicorn That Wore No Clothes'? The Art Critic world hasn't, it's not a story their parents would tell them. And it's hilarious. I draw something cliché, I draw a price tag onto the work 'Ironically', I pretend my cliché art is that way on purpose as a deep statement that would directly insult art critics and the art world even if the statement was my intention, and I call it a day before the laughter gets stale and the joke goes from funny to sad. I draw literal horseapples on a canvas and they gush over what a brilliantly witty and incisive commentary they consider it, unaware that they are my real exhibit, and by playing them and exposing their shallowness, they have become my canvas, and the silent amusement of the rare sane ponies in the crowd has become my art. My charity's trying to help the next generation of artists move on from the mistakes the previous ones made. I created and funded that organization because I want to create a positive influence on the art world, it desperately needs a new injection of fresh blood and new ideals, but until the eldest die or retire and the youngest get to take over, I doubt the conditions that allowed somepony like me to become famous for intentionally half-flanking art will change."

"...Oh." Rarity said, not sure what else to say.

"You've seen it for yourself, haven't you? You can pour your heart and soul into your craft, make it the best it can possibly be, and the ficklest of Canterlot trash will only pay attention to it if their owners tell them to. Meanwhile, those famous for being famous get to roll around in their undeserved fame along with those famous for being friends with famous people, those famous for being friends with critics and magazine reviewers, and those famous for having small cult-like fanbases full of dishonest and talentless people with more ambition than sense desperately trying to lick up some of that famous owner's fame, like demented hamsters in soiled cages attacking their water bottles with their tongues. Sure, you might gradually get a fanbase out of honest fans on your own merits, but those honest fans are taken from outside the stale art world, a world that can only be described as a constant spiralling triple mobius loop of ponies with their heads lodged firmly in each other's-"

Silver suddenly glanced to the snacks table, horn glowing, as if somepony had whispered something to him. "Is that real buttercream icing?"

Silver trotted back to the food table while pulling some of the real-buttercream-icing cupcakes towards himself, and Rarity blinked. It was like everything she'd known about the art world for years, especially that which she'd tried not to let get to her, had been dumped on her soul in a torrential deluge of cynicism. No, not cynicism. A cynic would sit at home and whine about how bad things were, and how things would always stay this bad. This Silver Star had no illusions about the art world, yet tried anyway to improve it, having fun along the way because... Well, that seemed to be the kind of pony he was.

He vanished suddenly, leaving Rarity wondering if she'd been talking to a phantom all along.

Meanwhile, Twilight and the Silver with her glanced over at the Silvers eating the party food.

"This is good!" The main Silver said in shock, a smile on his face. He pulled more punch into a ball and having it bounce into the cup he held aloft, and then it bounced back out and into his open mouth.. "Who made this?"

"Me!" Pinkie said happily.

"Well, I love it." Silver said, magically increasing his cup's size until it resembled a bucket normally filled with chicken, and he began to fill it with punch.

"Maybe you should pace yourself-" Twilight said in concern.

"Another one!" Rainbow Dash cheered.

"Chug! Chug! Chug!" Pinkie cheered, and other ponies around the room began to join in the chant of "Chug!".

Silver grinned and downed the massive cup of punch, threw it behind him, grabbed the punch bowl, and stood on two legs as he poured it straight into his open mouth. "PARTY!" He slammed, and his face distorted for a moment as he stared at the glass so hard it shattered. His horn lit up, his magic grabbing the shards and rubbing the pieces together in a big ball as he tried to remember his glassworking spell. He remembered it, and a spell turned the glass ball into a delicate crystal figurine of a screaming pony with no tail or face.

He swayed to the side, and laughed as he slammed the glass sculpture into the floor, shattering it, to the shock of some. "You put shilly shugar in thish, didn't you?" He chuckled.

"That's not aaa-all!" Pinkie sang cheerily.

"Your shilly shugar ish no matsh for my high awesomenesh levelsh! Watsh thish!" Silver said, and began to focus on his breathing. His horn was not glowing, and yet, he began to heat up rapidly until a hazy heat around him became visible. Sweat began to run down his body, only to vaporize as the silver unicorn began to gently vibrate.

And then he stopped, gasping for air as the heat around him dispersed. "And that's how a real Stallion gets foreign contaminants out of his system!" He declared eloquently, horn flashing blue as he repaired the

"What, taking a leak ain't fancy enough for ya?" Applejack asked.

"I take a leak on the act of taking a leak!" Silver declared, sending Pinkie Pie into a giggling fit and surprising Twilight sparkle. Silver wondered if he'd gotten all the silly sugar out of his system. Ah, well, he couldn't try that trick again, or they'd think something was up.

"How did you heat your body like that?" Twilight asked.

"Biofeedback and breathing control. It's nothing fancy, but if I touched a balloon and wanted it blown, I could heat it up until the rubber melted. And if I was lowered into a shark tank while chained up, I could freeze the water on contact. I bet I could pretend to be one of those mythical Unicorns that can use magic without needing to light up their horns." He shrugged. "If you want, I could show you again."

"No, it's fine. But if you could do it in my lab some time in the future, that'd be great!"

He smirked. "Twilight Sparkle, I would be honoured to visit your lab and heat things up with you."

"Great!" Twilight said happily, while several ponies lost it.

Silver walked off, and Twilight walked with him. "About earlier," She began.

"Let's start over." Silver offered.

"I'd like that. My name is Twilight Sparkle," Twilight said.

"Couldn't resist my charms, eh?"

"Evening."

"SARCASTIC."

"Howdy, y'all!"

Silver thought about saying each of these things, but he didn't think she'd respond well to the usual flirting routine. He decided upon what seemed like the best option for the scenario, and he decided he'd keep the flirting light. "Evening," He said casually. "My name is Silver Star."

"I think I recognize you from somewhere... Have you ever been to Canterlot?" She asked.

He smiled. "Yes, I went to Duel Academy when I was younger. The Royal Canterlot Academy of Magical Duelling, King Contractor, Prince of the House of Birds, master of the spell known as 'Infinitely Perfect Brilliance: The World Is My Castle', and Master of the World Tree, that's me, THE Silver Star."

He must have been embellishing near the end, because there was no World Tree, everypony knew that. "So..." She said while glancing away, as if wondering how to bring the subject up. She moved closer to him, and lowered her voice. "I hear ponies that want to get into Duel Academy have to take this entrance exam, and I heard there's a part of it that's said to be... Unbeatable."

"It is." He purred with a feline smirk, lowering his voice and moving closer still.

"How did you do it?" She asked eagerly.

"I'm really not supposed to tell ponies. Sure, it's not as if you're going to go to Duel Academy and try the test for yourself at your age, but still..." He glanced around, as if looking for ponies listening in. "Can you keep a secret?"

"Absolutely!" Twilight declared.

"Come closer." He said, leaning forward.

"Closer." He whispered, and she moved even closer, her raised ear almost touching his lips.

His voice was, even for her, at this distance, and even to her pony ears, barely audible. "I am..." He paused dramatically. "Awesome."

She pulled away. "Really?" She asked flatly.

"Hey, I never pass up a chance to disappoint cute mares." He said smoothly. And then his eyes widened in surprise, and she laughed. "No, I mean... No. Sorry, that sounded better in my head."

"It's ok. Now can you tell me how you did it? Or at least tell me what the test is?"

"Well, the test is unbeatable... But I'm also unbeatable, so the two unbeatables cancelled each other out and I won." Silver explained.

Twilight opened her mouth to say something.

"Also I exploited a massive loophole in the test's design." Silver said quickly. "By the way, I knew a Unicorn who gave herself artificial wings made of fire, I knew a pony who gave himself artificial wings made of magic-enhancing crystal, I knew a pony who gave himself dragon wings, and I once spent five months studying Pegasus anatomy, physiology, and magic so I could create a transformative spell that grants you proper Pegasus wings and all the abilities of one for a few months per cast, so I have to ask, are you a real Alicorn?"

"Yes, yes I am." Twilight said.

That surprised him. "Cool. You know, you're pretty cool, we'll have to share stories about our adventures some time. Hey, you went to Celestia's School, right?"

"Yes." Twilight said, a big part of her younger self overjoyed that she'd

"I went to Duel Academy." Silver said casually.

"Oh." Twilight said, suspecting that she knew where she was going. With rueful resignation, she asked, "Are you going to challenge me to a Magic Duel now?"

"No, this is a party. It would be considered rude to start an epic magical duel here. I think." Silver said. "Besides, I've never been that into the whole 'CS VS DA' rivalry."

"Oh." Twilight said, pleasantly surprised.

"Besides, if the stories about your power are true, a fight between us would probably end up tearing a hole in space and time unless we negotiated ahead of time which spells we can and cannot use on each other. And created several safe words, for all the different reasons one might need to cut our duel short." Silver admitted. "Anyhoof, I'm new in town, and I was thinking of staying for a few months. Maybe more, I'm not sure yet. Um... don't tell anypony this, but- Actually, could you set up a Silencing Shell? Preferably opaque?"

"We don't really need one in Ponyville, but okay." Twilight said, casting the spell and creating a large purple semicircular shell around them both.

Silver stared at her long, powerful horn admiringly, able to sense her magical strength from here. "Such... Power..." Silver whispered in awe, eyes wide as he unconsciously licked his lips, the glow of his horn instinctively blazing up to match hers.

"My eyes are down here." Twilight said flatly.

"Right, right. Sorry." Silver said, embarassed. "Well, the thing is... I saw you a few times, back when I went to Duel Academy. I never talked to you, even though I wish I did, but that's not why I'm here. I heard making friends made you grow into a better pony, literally and metaphorically, and I'd like that to happen to me. Not for Alicornification reasons - I don't need wings, even if yours are beautiful- I mean passable, but I... I, uh... You... You seem happy. Really happy. Happier than I've ever seen you. And I know it sounds stupid when I say it out loud, but... I want to be happy. And I want to be a better pony, too."

"Well, it's great that you're willing to take the first step." Twilight said. "But... I'm sorry, I can't say I remember you."

"I'd be surprised if you did, since we never really interacted at all, but... Remember that time Duel Academy pulled that spectacularly complex multi-layered heist of a plan, with TPing Celestia's School as the end result?" Silver asked.

"You did that?" Twilight asked, shocked.

"No, Royal Blue did that. My fr- My study group and I watched the fail-fest with a viewing crystal far, far away from the place, in Passionfruit's room." Silver admitted, smiling at the memory. "I set up a betting pool on which parts of the needlessly circuitous but still pretty cool plan would work, which would fail, and whether they'd actually succeed in the end or not. You could also bet on the specific reactions of individual ponies upon seeing said TP, even though I doubt anypony in my group had sufficient data to make such a prediction. To their credit, only vague and sweeping group bets were made: Less than two ponies will drop their jaws in shock, at least one Unicorn will incinerate the paper, rather than disintegrating it, at least one will say something amusing, one will swear revenge and another will quickly disagree and insist that revenge is bad, one will swear revenge and the majority will agree to let the papers fly in retaliation, and so on. I made a lot of money that day. And laughed a lot. Blue's squad certainly wasn't made for heists."

"Well, that's... nice." Twilight said, not sure how to react to that. She then remembered her old friends from Canterlot, and asked, "Do you still keep in touch with your study group?"

Silver hesitated. "Uh... No. Sorry. We don't really... get along... too well- they hate me. I... made an error." Silver admitted, his head lowering in shame. "It was... quite stupid of me, really. I made an error, and they all hate me for it. And so they should."

"Hey..." Twilight said, putting a hoof on his shoulder. He first reflexively looked at it in confusion, and then looked into her eyes, surprised at what he saw in them. "It's alright to make mistakes." She said soothingly, understandingly, compassionately. "We all make mistakes sometimes. Nopony's perfect, not even an Alicorn. What matters is that you apologize to anypony the mistake hurt, and make sure you learn from it."

He suddenly hugged her, to her clear surprise. "Thank you." He whispered.

He then pulled away, blushing a little as he realized what he'd just done. "I mean, um... Thank you for the sage advice, and, uh... I wish you success in the future! Yep."

She lowered her spellshield, and noticed that the music player had been stopped and everypony in the room was staring at the two, even Silver's other instances of himself. Twilight began to think of something to say, but Silver already had the perfect story thought up.

"Secret Canterlot stuff." Silver said offhoovedly, wandering towards the snacks table as his magic caused the music player to continue, exuding a tangible aura of 'It is a secret. You will never know about it, and so it is not worth thinking about. My body language makes it clear that it wasn't anything threatening or particularly important to you in particular' with every step. It worked, and the ponies shrugged and resumed talking amongst themselves, many of them now gossiping over Twilight's new friend.

He ate four pieces of vanilla cake and seven of chocolate, four pink bubblegum-flavouring-flavoured cakes, four yellow melon-flavoured ones, four blue blueberry-flavoured ones, and five purple ones that tasted like mixed berries, but when it was time to cut the REAL cake, Twilight cast a spell to make the cake grow in size, and then Pinkie cut out a large quarter for the guest of honour, and then she cut smaller pieces for everypony else, the slices perfectly-divided. Silver divided himself into five copies on the spot, each passing a quarter to the real Silver as he began to eat them all in a row, and when he finished them, he cheered and decided that since he needed to burn those calories off somehow, it was now REALLY time to hit the dance floor.

The party went on until midnight, though many exhausted ponies started to leave in the evening and more left just before midnight. When the clock reached midnight, AJ whispered something to Pinkie, and she rushed over to the music player to stop it and announce, "Party's over, everypony! I had a wonderful time, and I'd love to see you all again soon!"

As the others started to leave, Silver teleported a few feet to the side of Pinkie and smiled. "This was a wonderful party, Pinkie. I really enjoyed it, and the food was great. Did you make it?"

"Yep!" Pinkie said happily. "Mr and Mrs Cake made some of the stuff, too, but I made most of it myself, since I usually make the party stuff myself. Did you like it?"

"I loved it!" Silver said happily. "You are the greatest pastry chef I have ever met!"

"Really?" Pinkie asked in surprise.

"Yep!" Silver said happily. "I had a great time, and I'd love to party with you again."

Pinkie suddenly grabbed him for a tight hug, and Silver hugged back, a genuine smile on his face.

"I've gotta go. Goodnight, Silvie!" Pinkie said, bouncing away.

"'Silvie'?" Silver asked, amused, as he left the barn and started walking to Town Hall, his mind analysing the town and determining where Town Hall was likely to be.

And as Silver walked on, he started to realize that he was going to really like this town.

Harsh crimson light illuminated the round golden room full of desks and what looked like Royal Guards looking at the world through one-way magical viewing portals connected to magical chessboards, each square doing something when pressed, most squares linked to camera controls. But despite the room's low temperature and each pony's visible breath, the room's atmosphere was thick and oppressive, some ponies slowly and carefully guiding their magical viewers and some rapidly tapping away as they all hoped for the best and feared the worst.

A pair of locked doors had been placed into the floors, staircases leading to lower rooms where blindfolded ponies tried new experimental blends of future-sight potion, hoping to uncover more information. Here and there, thin poles stuck up from the ground. Atop those poles, raised chairs with built-in desks ensured there'd be more room for more ponies to spy on everything their leader wanted to be seen and known. And in raised shelves around the walls of the room, ponies were sat with thick black cloth around their eyes, the light of their glowing eyes slightly visible through their blindfolds.

The tense atmosphere was lessened slightly when one pony's outburst made the place feel more familiar. "He-This-What is this?!" What appeared to be a blonde-maned white Unicorn clad in a set of golden armour, utterly identical to every other Royal Guard in Canterlot, announced in confusion, and he slammed his head onto his desk. "Boss, I don't know if you're going to like this or not, but I think you should come see this anyway."

A pony materialized beside him, clad in ostentatious golden armour with crimson gems on each hoof's front. His tail was cloaked in golden chainmail, and ended in a round golden ball coated in black spikes. His face was concealed by a thick golden helmet with spikes on the top, jet-black like rays of cursed sunlight, a horizontal jade oval covering and concealing his face. "Does it involve The Amulet?" He asked, his voice low, carrying a metallic echo and that distinctive something only those in the military had.

"No." The pony answered quickly.

"Does it involve The Book?"

"No."

"Have the Changelings pulled anything yet?"

"Not yet."

"Dragons, Griffons?"

"Cowardly as ever, sir."

His gold-clad hoof struck his gold-clad face with a low and echoing clang that reminded one of a metal pan striking something. "What did Silver do this time?" He asked.

"He's just-He's in some town, I think he's trying to make friends with Princess Twilight and her friends."

"He's finally out of Canterlot!" A blue desk-pony cheered.

"Actually, he's still in Canterlot." An orange desk-pony chirped 'helpfully', hitting a random square on his left chessboard with the edge of his hoof, creating a holographic map of Equestria, clusters of blue-cored orange dots in every major city, a few dots in each non-major city. "And in Manehattan, and the Dragon lands, and- Oh... Wow, this guy needs a hobby."

"Hm, he's using That Spell again," The golden figure noted.

"Which spell?" A red Pegasus asked in confusion.

"That Spell." A yellow one supplied helpfully. "You know, the one that turns stuff into food."

"No way, he calls the one that ignores durability and makes stuff break on its own That Spell." A blue one muttered.

"Wrong, he calls that spell 'That Technique'. That Spell is the one that places a persistent thought-form illusion spell on an object."

"No, you're thinking of 'That Technique'. That Spell is the one that fixes broken stuff, but in the way he wants it to be fixed."

"Nuh-uh, he calls the one that makes steamrollers fall from the sky That Spell." A green one petulantly insisted.

Someone's high voice shouted at them from downstairs. "I distinctly remember someone using the words 'That' and 'Spell' when we saw him tackle somepony out of a fifty-storey window and cast a spell to transfer their downward momentum into energy, which he then converted into food!"

"Wish I could do that..." The orange one muttered again.

The gold pony screamed with rage, loudly. Some ponies flinched and covered their eats, and others were too used to it to react. The gold-cloaked figure screamed, and screamed, for a full minute. He slammed his metal-clad hoof into the ground, and screamed again.

And then, he sighed, and spoke smoothly. "This changes nothing. Everypony, back to work. Remember, we're approaching our deadline. Whoever finds that Amulet will bring about a new era of stability, peace, and light. Whoever finds that Amulet will SAVE EQUESTRIA!"

There was a dramatic pause.

"And get a pay raise!" The orange pony chirped to remind him, to the gold-clad pony's irritation, ruining the dramatic pause.

"Yes," The gold pony growled darkly. "Whoever finds that Amulet will bring about a new era of stability, peace, and light... and get a pay raise."


	3. 3 - Drifting into a Dog Daze

Silver awoke on some soft bed with a burning headache in a blurred world, slamming his eyes shut. His mind was assaulted with separate overwhelming floods of information from around the world. "Aquilla!" He shouted weakly.

He felt the displacement of air beside him signify his Griffon's arrival through teleportation. "Yes, boss?" She asked.

"Where am I, and how did I get here?" He asked.

"Ponyville, your new home. You made a house here yesterday, but you fell asleep halfway to the Mayor's office, so I brought you back." Aquilla explained.

"Why?" Silver asked.

"You didn't sleep for a long time," She shrugged, "So it caught up with you."

"Great." Silver grumbled, unsteadily getting to his hooves. "Hope nopony saw me."

"I flew in and grabbed you as soon as you started to shake, boss!" She chirped proudly.

"You were watching me?" Silver asked.

"Always!" She chirped again.

"You know I have Replicas for that." He grumbled, opening his eyes. "...Woah."

His new penthouse bedroom looked pretty good, to his eyes. Steel floors and high steel walls, though one wall had been replaced by a wall of orange-tinted windows to the outside world. It was like the whole wall was made of whatever sunglasses were made of, letting him feel the warmth of sunlight without hurting his eyes. He was standing on a rotating circular orange bed with blue pillows and bedsheets, and a whole lot of ceiling-high bookshelves were on the walls, enchanted weapons mounted on walls between them.

"I had the birds and foxes set up shop." She explained.

"What's my house, again?" He asked, jumping down from the bed. He checked the Griffon's form again, to see if it really was her.

He saw a Griffon, a focused and lean purple-reared orange-fronted Panther/Falcon. Her longer head-feathers were pulled back into a loose black-banded ponytail, with 'bangs' of feathers hanging down the sides of her avian face. Golden eyes, a yellow beak, golden gauntlets with sharp claws around her taloned forelimbs. It was Aquilla, and to him, she looked as cool and cute as ever. "Enchanted weapon store and consulting office, like your sign said," She explained. "But there'll be plenty of room for you to branch out and sell more things."

"Oh, excellent!" Silver cheered, leaping out of the window with a massive crash of glass.

Used to this, she flew down and watched him land on his hooves like a cat, his horn flashing at the glass to make it fly back up and fix itself.

"Dork," She chuckled ruefully, shaking her head.

Sunrise didn't hear it, however, because he'd attempted to land in some fancy pose, only to miscalculate some angles and fall back onto his butt. "Ow," He muttered quietly, getting back up.

"Not bad," Rainbow Dash said, and in shock, he turned around to see the blue flier, along with Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, and Fluttershy. And they all had gifts, to his surprise.

"Hi!" Pinkie Pie chirped. "Are you ready for a super-fun housewarming party?"

"Indeed, I am!" He said, striking the earth and sliding up his house's wall and through his window, smashing it like a bubble as he slid through it, though the glass reformed behind him once again.

Everypony stared in silent, stunned shock for a moment, except for Pinkie, who liked it.

"Did... Did he just..." Twilight wondered.

Inside the house, as he slid across the side of walls and leapt over side corridoors that were now more like pits from this angle, Silver said to himself, "I really hope they thought that was cool!"

However, Twilight and the others didn't really look like they found it cool. They looked like they thought it was weird.

Silver made it to the ground floor and from within the house, on the ground floor, his voice could be heard as he called to his new friends. "Come on in!"

They entered, and saw white pony models wearing sets of stylish and protective skate gear, fencing gear, and armour pieces around the room, the center taken up with shelves slightly shorter than the ponies present. The shelves were stocked with food, boxed or packeted in foreign languages, all a tad pricey but presumably worth it. On the walls, he had skateboards without wheels in different designs, some longer and some shorter, some bulkier and some thinner, some rounder and some pointier, but all with Silver's Cutie Mark on the bottom, and all with tags that displayed prices and the ratings of each board. Each board also had a semicircular crater on one end, about the size of a baseball. The tags rated each board in Dash, Limit, Power, and Cornering, and each statistic was ranked from one star to seven. While all of these looked rather toyetic, the higher-ranked boards looked like they'd make the pointiest and therefore coolest toys.

"Woah!" Rainbow Dash gasped in awe.

"He wants to sell these?" Twilight wondered.

"Looks like Rarity might have some competition!" Applejack said, checking out the models on display, especially one that caught her eye. It was wearing a jade skier's visor, a black tracksuit with orange lines on the right side and light-blue lines on the left.

On the farthest wall, an empty cashier's desk greeted them, until Silver emerged from the wall, as if that wall was just an illusion. "Welcome! See anything you'd like?" He asked.

"Are those real Extreme Gears?" Rainbow Dash asked, pointing at the wall's hoverboards.

"Indeed, my fine-eyed feathered friend!" Silver announced proudly.

"Extreme Gears?" Applejack asked, because she had no idea what these things were.

"Hoverboards." Twilight explained.

"Hey, they're more than just hoverboards," Silver corrected in a slightly obnoxious manner, grabbing two boards from behind him and showing them off. One was a friendly-looking green board shaped like an elongated lowercase n, a yellow streak on one side, solid white lines marking segments on its thin and barely-perceptible fuel gauge. The other one looked like a red-striped black isosceles triangle with serration on the straight side, and though the edges and points were about as sharp as a cricket bat's edge, the board itself just exuded edge. "Extreme Gears are powerful and precise achievements in magic and science, granting flight to anypony. They can't go more than a few feet off the ground, but their high durability and higher speed makes up for it. They're also cheaper to maintain and more environmentally friendly than any blimp, boat, or train. These things fly using raw air, sucking in air to fill their high-pressure magic-enhanced tanks when not in use. They can fly anywhere, any time, over sand, sea, and pretty much anything else. Also, their names are cooler."

"What are the holes for?" Pinkie asked.

"Magical Cores, I make and sell them in the back." Silver said. "Boards don't need them, so I can weld a semicircular metal Filler in and paint it the correct colour if you never plan on buying them. But you should, because they're horn-crafted, brilliantly made, and well worth the asking price, believe me. I actually sell my Magical Cores for less than the standard marking price over here, because I overcharge elsewhere, in richer areas. Magical Cores boost the Dash, Limit, Power, and Cornering of Extreme Gears. You know, their acceleration, top speed, ability to get slowed down less when you crash or fly over uneven and softer terrain, and ability to turn at high speed. The best ones can even grant them and their riders unique abilities, such as launching fireballs, leaving a trail of magical ice in your wake that freezes any who fly over it, or even slowing down time for a second or two! So they're well worth the added price, believe me! The best racers know your Board and Core choice is a big part of getting the most out of your Board, and whether you're looking to go pro, pick up a new hobby, or even just get something to help you or your grandma get to the store and back faster, Cores are always worth it. I also sell Refuelling Stations, if you're interested. They'll fill a depleted air supply back up in a few seconds."

"Aren't hoverboards banned in Equestria, due to being incredibly unsafe?" Twilight asked curiously.

"They are, but I invented safer, faster, and more efficient hoverboards, which aren't what I'm selling here. According to my lawyers, that law doesn't apply to me as long as I call them Extreme Gears. But I also crafted a full set of limits, regulations, and standards all of my boards meet, for the sake of making them safer. I also developed a system of board Classification, and my competitors will, when the ban on hoverboard transportation is lifted, stick to it."

That piqued her interest. "Safety regulations?" She excitedly asked, eager for more knowledge.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. Only somepony like Twilight could find something so boring to be so interesting.

"Indeed. Thanks to a sustained protective field these things generate around the wearer using excess magical energy, a field that gets stronger while in motion and only depletes your speed to maintain during impacts, these things are far safer than even a regular skateboard or Pegasus Taxi. You can crash into somepony, you can hit a tree face-first at high speed, you can even hit a rock and fly off your board, and everything will be fine, thanks to those protective fields. You won't even fly off your board if you don't want to, but if you do, the shield will stick with you for a few seconds. And until I can prove that to everypony in the world, I have an expert-visionary and pro-visionary license to sell them to anypony with a Cutie Mark. Which is good, because I make the best Power-Type boards this side of Equestria!"

"Can you tell me more about this Classification system?" Twilight asked eagerly.

"Well, there are three Extreme Gear types: Speed, Flight, and Power. There might be a fourth Skill-type board some time in the future, I'm on the fence between making Skill boards gimmicky and comparatively weak boards with a unique upside for each one and just making them faster Flight boards, but without flight and with better stats to compensate. But for now, there are three types. Speed-type boards are faster than their peers, and a built-in modification to their protective field lets you grind on anything you see. Rails, lampposts, anything, and in any direction you want, just get your board's side on it and it'll start grinding faster than its usual top speed, restoring lost Air in the process."

"How does grinding on a rail restore air?" Twilight wondered.

"It doesn't, the friction generates heat, which is converted by the board's magitek into raw mana, which the board converts into air." Silver explained. "Power boards are tougher and easier to control for beginners, and much better off-road. Well, all Extreme Gears are all great off-road, since they fly, but these are even better at off-roading than usual. Power boards are harder to push off the track, too. Last, but not least, there are Flight boards. Now, Flight boards, these are something special. Fly one off a ramp with enough speed, and you'll begin converting your speed into enough upward lift to sustain a controlled glide. You can use this to access shortcuts during races, though the longer you spend in the air, the more forward momentum you sacrifice, and you'll eventually run out of both and fall back to the ground. Well, not the ground per se, the usual level at which boards fly above the ground. You'll fall to the level that is, comparatively speaking, the ground."

"So, in a way, they're still evenly balanced." Twilight realized, appreciating his design choices.

"That's what I was going for. When enough ponies have heard about Extreme Gear, I'm going to start an official Equestria Grand Prix, with one **_very_ **large prize for the winner."

"Awesome!" Rainbow Dash cheered. "Hey, you said you make great Power boards, right?"

"Indeed. I dabble in Flight and Speed, but my most popular models are the Power Boards. It could be because they're easier to control than their counterparts, or it could be because I know how to make a board almost as unrelenting as myself," Silver said with a proud grin, grabbing a grey oval hoverboard ringed with a bright blue edge. "Ride one of these, and you aren't wasting time and magic going around obstacles, you're smashing right through them, gaining bonus speed in the process."

Applejack raised an eyebrow, doubting him. "Crashing into stuff to go faster? How's that work?"

"A little trick of mine, something that makes Power boards special. I've enchanted them with magic ready and waiting to turn the kinetic energy of any collision into additional speed, while also focusing force into whatever you hit, instead of you," Silver explained casually. "The enchantment is channelled through the board's protective field and it extends to the rider, so if you want to punch through some giant rocks in a racetrack yourself, or let your board do the smashing, or smash the rocks with a laser, you can. You can slam boulders with your bare hooves, and you'll feel like you're knocking polystyrene cups out of the way. I can't find a way to stop Unicorns from using their magic to destroy every obstacle on the track for extreme speed boosts, so that's just something official race judges can limit on their own."

"How does your Extreme Gear rating system work?" Twilight asked.

"Each board is ranked in four categories: Dash, Limit, Power, and Cornering. The higher a board's Dash, the faster it can travel during Air Dashes. All boards gradually use a small amount of air while flying, but you can expend a large chunk of that air in an Air Dash to instantly boost your speed. The higher a board's Limit, the higher its maximum speed. Power determines how much force your board has when it flies, the higher a board's Power, the better it does off-road. Cornering, like you'd expect, determines how good a board is at turning corners while maintaining its top speed. Though, if I'll be honest, once you've gotten good at riding Extreme Gears and executing a good Air Slide, you don't really need a high cornering stat."

"'Air Slide'?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"It's this technique like Drifting, only better. Because you're doing it on my Extreme Gear."

She was starting to get tired of this guy's ego. "And?" She asked impatiently.

"You stamp a certain part of the board and sharply turn your board to the side, while continuing to fly in the direction you were heading before you started Air Sliding. It slightly reduces your speed, but it's great for tight cornering, and if you Air Slide for just long enough, you'll fly off at your previous high speed as soon as you stop Air Sliding. By the way, while I've got some real masterpieces on sale here, I also do commissions. If you want something fine-tuned to be perfect for you, something that'll look perfect for you, and even look quite a bit like you if you'd like, say the word and get your chequebook ready!"

"I'll take one!" Rainbow Dash announced eagerly, flying past him and looking closer at the price tags for the fastest things he had for sale. "...In a few weeks!" She announced a little less eagerly, flying back to her original spot.

"It's the price of quality," Silver said, not even a little ashamed. "I'd like to sell some enchanted weapons and armour pieces, as well. I might not get many orders in a world like this, but I like working on that stuff, all the same. Did I ever tell you about these?" He asked, pointing a forehoof at Applejack and beaming an orange ray of light at her that held her still as she struggled to break free. He casually lifted her into the air, and then gently set her back down, the orange energy leaping back into his hoof.

"Don't do that again." Applejack said. "...How'd you do that?"

"Pretty cool, aren't they? They've won more duels for me than I have time to recount. At least the ones where outside weapons are banned, AND I can't get around that by calling these clothing articles or walking in without them and summoning them in the duel. Behold!" Silver announced, flipping over and raising his rear into the air as his desk hid his face from view, sticking his rear hooves right at them. Fluttershy fainted, and Twilight curiously looked closer at them. "I've forced powerful magical enchantments into an article of clothing I'm never without: My horseshoes! I can absorb force and redirect it, or store it for later. These horseshoes can then use that stored force as energy for pre-programmed light, force, and sound spells, such as making temporary light constructs out of hard light. Or, I can launch things, using that stored energy as momentum. Each shoe also carries its own, unique ability that can be fuelled by stored energy. What powers are those? Well, you'll have to see for yourself some day."

Rainbow Dash remembered something she'd seen in a comic. "Can you recharge them with a big battery while reciting a poem?" She asked sarcastically, and Pinkie laughed, to the confusion of the other ponies. If Spike was here, he would have gotten it.

"Anything containing enough magical energy could refuel-" Silver said, and then he got the reference and chuckled. "Yes, those Rings were a source of inspiration. But they're powered by stored energy, nothing quite as fancy as an emotion, and these beams of light are only orange because I like the colour. I'm not going to repeatedly yell 'Mine!' any time soon."

Twilight's horn lit up with a bright purple blaze, and a similar glow filled her eyes. "You split the horseshoes in half, engraved magic into one half's lower side, and covered that side with the other half," She recognized, impressed. "And instead of welding them shut, you turned one half intangible, pushed it slightly into its twin, and negated the intangibility spell."

"Indeed! Many years ago, back when I relied almost exclusively on runework, I lost a Magic Duel when my opponent used magic to scrub the magical runes from my suit." Silver explained, hoping she'd gush about his masterful runework soon. "I decided I didn't want something like that happening again to tools so useful, so protecting and hiding magic runes became my favourite trick from then on."

"Your runework is quite impressive," She said, cancelling her spell.

That felt anticlimactic. He was hoping she'd start calling it the best she'd ever seen, ever. But, then again, maybe she'd seen better. She was a Princess, now, after all. "I dabble in applied magi-matics," He said proudly. "Now, didn't somepony say something about a house-warming party?"

"Here you go!" Pinkie said happily, pulling gifts out of her mane and passing one to each of her friends, then giving Silver her gift first. He opened it with his magic, and a fully-sized oven emerged from the tiny package, the whole thing suddenly heavy, shocking him into dropping it to the floor. "It's an oven!" She said happily.

"Uh... Thank you." He said uncertainly, teleporting the oven away.

Rainbow Dash's gift was next, it was a black stopwatch.

"Cool, what does it do?" Silver asked excitedly.

"It stops and starts." She said.

"Huh. Well, it's still nice." He said, still trying to seem grateful anyway. Did she fall for it? He couldn't tell.

Twilight Sparkle's gift was a globe you could magically store books inside, Fluttershy's was a nice green vase with a pink flower on it, Rarity's was a flat rectangular white box to be opened when she arrived, and Applejack's was some rope. Just... some rope. Well, at least it didn't appear used.

Spike burst through the door, panting heavily and sweating, a note in his claws, which he passed to Twilight. "Guys!" He shouted. "The Diamond Dogs took Rarity!"

Twilight took the note. "Dear Pesky Ponies," She read aloud. "If you ever want to see your whiny friend again, bring the orange-maned grey pony to us, at high noon. We're in the Crystal Caverns near Ponyville. Signed, The Diamon- Anonymous."

"I'd normally negotiate for a better deal than that, but I'll take it," Silver said suddenly, throwing the rope to Applejack and holding his forehooves out.

"What?" Twilight gasped.

He squinted at the paper. "Also, I'm silver, not grey." He clarified for the benefit of that paper, as if it was a living, breathing thing.

"Hold on, nopony's giving themselves up!" Twilight declared. "We can get through this together, we just have to-"

"Equestria needs the six of you together more than it needs me, and I have yet to find any cell, trap, or binding spell that can hold me." Silver announced, closing his eyes and sticking his limbs out for her. "Tie me up, so they'll buy it."

"The Diamond Dogs aren't really a threat, you don't need to-" Twilight tried to begin.

"My one regret! Is that I never got a chance to tell you... How I feel..." He dramatically declared as he stared into her eyes, and then he chickened out and pulled away. "About the greatest book of all time!"

"Seriously, this isn't a big deal-" Twilight tried to begin.

"I'll give my life, not for honour, but for you! Just promise me you'll write a musical about this day, immortalizing my deeds in song!" He declared, and chuckled. "Just foaling, I just think I can get a better shot at the Diamond Dogs if they think I'm tied up. I once studied an escape artist for about a week, so I'm basically the greatest escape artist who ever lived."

"You want to help out?" Rainbow Dash asked, surprised.

"Sure, why not? I didn't become the best magical duellist in the world by hiding from danger!" He announced proudly.

"You lost last year's championship match." Rainbow Dash pointed out.

He grinned. "Yes, to a cheap, cheating little scrub who got lucky," He hissed through gritted teeth.

"'Got lucky'?" Rainbow laughed. "He destroyed you! Uh, no offense."

"None taken!" He said with fake happiness. "I'll be back next year, and I'll steamroll that time-erasing super-lucky cheater before he can even blink."

"Didn't you also lose the championship the year before you fought that guy who 'Just got lucky'?" Rainbow asked teasingly.

"Yes, to somepony who could **_accelerate time! Exclusively for himself!_ **One second for me was a minute for him, and he didn't have to suffer any of the usual downsides of going fast. You try the usual trick, where you throw spellbolts around for him to run into, and he just strolls around them! And he could even throw spellbolts back in time to hit me before they were thrown! How was I supposed to predict that? I was just a foal back then, after all."

"That was two years ago," Rainbow Dash noted.

"Comparatively speaking. When I met that foe, I was just a student. But now, I am the master. For at the time, I didn't have any spells that could deal with that. But now I'm working on a spell that'll prevent all time-manipulation abilities in a certain radius around me."

"And you lost the championship the year before that..." She reminded him.

"I lasted a whole minute against Ace, and forced her to take the fight seriously, AND use her magic" He reminded her, "Which you'd recognize as a big deal if you knew what she was and where she was from."

"And you lose the semi-finals the year before that..."

"On a technicality! No, worse, on Technique Points! We both went down at the same time, and the judge awarded more points to my opponent because the big dumb magic ball of hers I destabilized to blow us both up impressed the judge for some stupid reason. I mean, seriously! **Come! On! It is a BALL!** There is nothing impressive about a BALL!"

"Guys, focus!" Spike yelled. "Rarity's in trouble!"

"Not for long!" Silver declared dramatically, grabbing an orange board with crimson flames and strangely sprinting out of the store. He moved his two forehooves in unison with each other, pulling himself forward while his powerful back legs moved in the same way, pushing himself forward with multiple low and long leaps.

"...Did he just rush off on his own?" Fluttershy nervously asked in concern.

"Why does he run like that?" Rainbow Dash wondered, unimpressed.

"I thought we were going to tie Silver up," Applejack admitted, deciding to drop the rope.

Twilight could already see where this was going, and she didn't like it. "Let's go to the Crystal Caves, he'll get there eventually."

They left the shop and spotted Silver leaping from rooftop to rooftop, looking down every so often and squinting at seemingly nothing, presumably looking for clues. They ignored him and rushed to the Crystal Caves, following Spike's directions as he whispered them to Twilight.

"How did they get her, anyway?" Rainbow Dash asked her friends along the way. "Isn't she a master of pony karate or something?"

"I don't know, but if they got Rarity, they must be smarter than they were last time." Twilight said.

"Yeah, but I was there last time," Spike explained. "And I saw it happen. This time, I didn't even know Rarity was gone until I found that note!"

"I hope Rarity's okay," Fluttershy semi-whispered in concern.

"Me too, Fluttershy," Twilight agreed.

And then Pinkie jumped up from behind Twilight. "Didn't they capture her easily last time, too? Is this going to happen just like it happened last time only worse again?"

Silver appeared before them, a pair of cobalt-blue aviators with bright orange lenses over his eyes, and he darted towards a lamppost, running up it vertically and perching atop it. "Her heat and temporal signatures lead this way!" He announced, backflipping off the lamppost and getting caught by his Extreme Gear board. "And no, this won't be like last time, because I'm here, which automatically makes it cooler."

Atop his board, he whooshed away.

"Wait, does he even know what happened last time?" Twilight asked. She didn't think she'd told him that.

Rainbow Dash blinked in surprise. "I don't sound like that, do I?" She asked Pinkie Pie, who shook her head and hugged her.

And then, they were off, heading for Rarity.

Sure, Rarity was probably fine. Sure, Rarity was probably whining loudly, and forcing them to endure her whiniest voice. After all, she might step in mud, get mud on her coat, get dirt in her hair, or worst of all, chip a hoof! Sure, the chance that these things could happen was the closest thing to danger she was currently in, but it was the principle of the thing! When your friends got kidnapped, you tried to rescue them, even if they were probably perfectly fine.

Silver continued to fly beside them, but every so often, he'd jump off and cast a spell that didn't seem to have any effect, but with how he'd look around after each one, Twilight was sure it added some additional temporary ability to his vision. Either that, or he was just trying to show off again.

Twilight continued to curiously observe him, memorizing the strange spells even if she couldn't yet understand how they worked or what magical language they were written in. His personality seemed to change so often... The friendly salespony, the out-of-place intellectual, the obnoxious showpony, the party animal... Twilight was starting to suspect these many faces of Silver were just masks he wore. But now, he was focused and alert, his masks were forgotten, and she felt she was starting to see the real Silver. He moved like a wild fox hunting for food, every movement sudden and sharp as he darted from hiding place to hiding place. Every sound for miles around, he heard. Every blade of grass, he saw. He was alert, aware, and alive.

She had to admit, this wasn't how she thought this was going to go. Books had taught her scenarios like this always ended with the overconfident loner learning that he couldn't do everything by himself, not with the overconfident loner deciding to rush in as a group and improvise from there.

Finally, they made it to the Crystal Cave, and if all that jumping around and spellcasting had tired Silver out, he only looked it when he thought she wasn't looking.

"Did you bring a light?" Pinkie asked everypony.

"No," Silver chuckled sarcastically, horn glowing as he summoned a falcon, except it was on fire, not that it seemed to mind as it flapped in place beside him. He walked on into the cave, and the rest followed, but only because he was first. Rainbow Dash overtook him soon enough anyway, flying on her back.

"Do you think those Diamond Dogs will be any trouble?" She asked the obnoxious peacocking boaster. She wasn't sure why, but something about him was starting to rub her the wrong way.

"Please, I've fought the professional duellists in over fifty worlds, I've fought world-ending beasts of darkness, and, in some cases, world-ending beasts of light, fire, water, earth, and cheese, and I've saved countless alternate dimensions from themselves. And that was before I had the fastest flier in Equestria, the universe's strongest magician, and the other Elements on my side. What can some dumb animals do against us?" Silver asked with a grin, as Rainbow Dash realized this guy was starting to get on her last nerve.

And then the ground gave way beneath them, and they screamed as they fell down a pitfall trap. Twilight grabbed Pinkie, Rainbow grabbed Applejack, and Fluttershy tried to grab Silver, but he had already surrounded himself in an orange bubble of magic from his hooves that grew larger to envelop everypony, and slowed everypony's descent to a pleasant downward glide. Everypony landed safely, and his bubble popped, dropping them all.

"That." Rainbow Dash quipped.

He took a moment to take this in. "I did this," He quietly said to himself. "This is my fault."

"Hey, why didn't you just let us fly you out?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Sorry, reflexes," Silver explained. "Well, who wants to see how fast I can get us out of this?"

Twilight instantly teleported them all out of the pitfall trap.

"Aw." He quietly expressed his sadness, looking down, and then suddenly perking up. "I mean, great job!" He said heartily, teleporting next to Twilight and reassuringly patting her on the back. She looked at him like he was some kind of weirdo.

A tub full of mud descended upon the ponies from above, coating everypony, which shocked the Unicorns and Pegasi in the group and barely bothered the Earth Ponies at all. When the downpour stopped, Sunrise forced his hoof to glow and sent a snaking stream of orange light into the upper roof of the cave, illuminating and revealing a muddy wooden tub skewered on a stone stick, with a long rope attached to one side of the tub, so it could dunk its contents on any pony below when pulled.

And then the ground beneath them gave way and crumbled beneath them once more. They screamed for real (And Pinkie cheered and whooped) as they fell down a second pitfall trap, which curved around and lead into a thin wall of mud, which they easily broke through with their speed. The pitfall had become a chute that deposited them into the original pit, and when they looked where they had came from, they saw a muddy pipe leading into this pit that had been obscured by a thin mud wall last time. Silver straightened his body to fall faster and he landed first, hooves flashing orange and absorbing the shock. His right forehoof's orange energy formed a bouncy castle for the rest to bounce on, something Pinkie loved.

"How?!" Silver snapped at the tunnel walls as he formed a cloth on a string and washed his horn off with it, his voice echoing, his bouncy castle vanishing as Pinkie bounced higher and landed on Rainbow Dash. "How did you predict that?"

The laughter of two haughty rich-pony voices, one male and one female, caught their ears, along with the laughter of a mare from Manehattan.

Or, at least, they thought these were ponies, until they looked up and saw the silhouetted figures of two Diamond Dogs.

"Prepare for trouble, here in this cave!" The female figure announced, thin and lithe, with a spiralling catlike tail.

"And make it double, this could be your grave!" The buff male figure with huge hands announced.

"An evil as old as the land and sea..." She began.

"Sent here to fulfill our destiny!" He continued.

A smaller third figure popped up between them. "And then, there's me!" Her high and unfitting manehattanite voice announced.

"To eat and drink to our hearts' content!" Said the tall female.

"And hoard the rest without paying a cent!" Said the large male.

One by one, gems around them started to glow upon them like spotlights, properly illuminating them.

"Rock!" The top-heavy and muscular male yellow Golden Retriever-breed Diamond Dog announced, flexing his muscles and swinging his arms to his companions. His black Dog collar was studded with golden-yellow diamonds, and an open black leather jacket with torn-off sleeves adorned his chest.

"Springer!" The thin female announced, a beautiful brown Cocker Spaniel-breed Diamond Dog with massively wide fluffy ears, which had extra-fluffy bits on the end that looked kind of like fists, to make up for how incredibly thin and long her regular arms and dainty but elegantly-clawed paws were. Her body was slender, with a long brown tail, a golden open jacket with torn sleeves, big hips with long canine legs, and a thin waist her matching yellow-diamond-studded collar was secured around. She copied his pose and touched their paws together, forming a diamond.

"And Butcher's da name!" The tiny female Manehattanite dog announced, landing on their crossed arms. The author had no idea what this breed of dog was called, but she was about the size of a filly, she was covered in excessively long bone-white fur, her muzzle was small and pointed, and her eyes were soulless black dots. She had a black collar with yellow diamonds around her neck, matching the other two Dogs, and a white open jacket.

"Whenever ponies are having a ball," They announced in unison, swinging their arms around and launching Butcher into the air to backflip and land before them with both her arms raised to the sky. Springer folded her arms and stared her foes down imperiously, while Rock flexed and stuck his muscular arms towards her, all three together forming the shape of a D while a big red D appeared behind them, along with a background of black space with coloured gems for stars. "The Alpha Agents will be there, to take it all!"

An explosion of coloured blue smoke exploded behind them.

The ponies stared in shock, and blinked a few times as the background vanished and the smoke faded away.

"You'll have time to work on a better intro in prison," Silver said, charging up his horn's magic.

"Bold words for one caught in a pit!" Springer laughed.

"I think it's clear that you're full of it!" Butcher added.

From Silver's horn, a beam of blue light rapidly flew at Butcher's face. It hit its mark, and washed over the dog's face harmlessly like water flowing around a showering pony. The beam converged behind his head and struck a rock behind it, turning it to chocolate.

"Impossible!" Silver gasped. And then he quickly looked to Twilight. "This usually never happens, I can assure you!"

"O-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho! That's what all stallions say!" Springer declared and laughed elegantly, covering her fanged canine mouth with a fluffy prehensile ear while she folded her arms.

"Tell me how you predicted where Twilight would teleport us!" Silver demanded.

"You aren't in a position to make demands!" Springer declared.

"Yeah! Besides, we didn't predict anything, we just spent hours making tons of pitfall traps!" Butcher giggled.

Springer lightly slapped Butcher with one of her ears.

"Wait!" Rainbow Dash called. "You aren't the Diamond Dogs we fought last time!"

"Of course not!" Rock declared, sticking his arms out so he and Springer could form a diamond with their arms again. "Those idiots were here to scout this town out and search for gems. They might not have found a Gem Tracker, but they did find a lot of gems in the area! And that means we were sent here to take your gems, by any means necessary!"

Springer grinned, her eyes sparkling as imagined visions of gem piles appeared behind her. "And if your little grey friend there can summon an army and make a house in an afternoon, imagine what he could make for us when he spends the rest of his life working for us! He can make us a real Gem Mine, just like in the good old days, and fill it with animal slaves!"

Fluttershy gasped. "You monsters!"

"No way!" Silver furiously declared. "The Birds and my Foxponies are NOT slaves! Also, I'm silver."

"Your Foxponies?" Twilight repeated curiously, and she wondered if she heard that correctly.

"Of course not, dear." Springer said sarcastically, rolling her eyes. "They only fulfill your every request because they ENJOY it."

"You'd be surprised," Silver noted, and Springer's expression turned to one of disgust. "But in all seriousness, I signed a Contract with the Birds. I steadily give them a tiny percentage of my magic over time, I find them a new summoner or rare book every so often so they'll like me more, and in return, I get to freely summon birds beneath my rank in their system and access their vast libraries at will."

Twilight didn't react, though he wondered why he was bothering to explain to these dogs what every foal knew about magically summoning animal families big enough to have contracts.

"As for the Foxponies, I built their capital. They like me, and a lot of them like getting to build and fight for me," Silver bragged.

"You built what?!" Twilight gasped. "How? That's not possible! Nopony had ever even seen a Foxpony before-"

"Long story, I'll give you the fifty-thousand-word biography later," Silver interrupted.

"That's right, enough talk!" Rock shouted and flexed aggressively. "We're here to get gems and fight ponies, and we haven't got any gems yet!

"We're here ta conquer this land and take its riches for ourselves!" Butcher declared Manehattanitely, pulling a tied-up Rarity out from behind him. She'd been gagged with one of her own purple purple socks, only rolled up. "We've got ya best friend all tied up, too!"

"Rarity!" Applejack gasped.

"Dat's right!" Butcher boasted.

"Don't worry, Rarity, we'll save you!" Twilight shouted.

"How did you three kidnap her?" Spike demanded.

"We're elite Alpha Agents of da mighty underground Diamond Dog Kingdom!" Butcher declared proudly. "Our fancy collars make us impervious ta magic! Nuttin's impossible for da likes of us!"

"Diamond Dog Kingdom?" Silver asked, raising an eyebrow as Rainbow Dash furiously shot up at them. "Why haven't I ever heard of you?"

"Because we're underground, duh!" Springer insisted and grinned, bringing a small grey controller out of her ear fur and tauntingly drawing her finger across the single red button in its center, causing Rainbow Dash to angrily stop. "Just like you're about to be, forever! Unless, of course, you give us that grey Unicorn friend of yours."

"Fine," Silver said, rolling his eyes and stepping forward. "And I'm Silver, remember it. So what do you want first, birds that'll see through solid rock and tell you where the gems are? Enchanted ghost-possessed mining tools that'll glide through rock and strip-mine a mountain into rubble in a few hours?"

"All of ponykind, enslaved!" Rock shouted, evilly flexing his arms as lightning struck behind him.

"Huh," Silver noted, stepping forward, turning back to wink at his friends, then looking up at the Diamond Dogs. "Well, I don't know anypony that still sells anything that can get you that, for obvious reasons. Do tell me if you find somepony who does. So, you thought if you captured this mare, you'd be able to make me mine gems for you?"

"Exactly!" Butcher confirmed.

"What if I don't want to do that?" Silver asked. "I've got some spare Ghostools lying around – That's what I call tools that phase through whatever you want and take whatever you want with them, patent pending – but that's all I'm willing to offer for a pony like this."

"Mmf?!" Rarity furiously mmfed.

"Come on, look at her!" Silver chuckled. "You didn't really get anypony IMPORTANT, and plenty of ponies are generous, we'll find a replacement in a week. You really didn't think this through very well. She's just a useless seamstress, it's not like she'll be able to break free of her bindings, punt the white one into this pit, and kick the fluffy-haired one in the face while I take the big one out!"

Rock looked back at the tied-up Rarity, and curiously tilted his head. "No, I don't think she could do that."

"Dis dumb pony's neva gonna escape!" Butcher gloated.

Silver subtly pawed at the ground, a thin and precise orange shockwave rocketing up the pit walls to leap onto and sink into Rarity's bindings, rippling along their length like whips before pulling themselves apart in opposite directions, breaking them.

The Diamond Dogs screamed. "She escaped!" Butcher shouted, and Rarity furiously punted him into the pit like a football.

Silver fired a blue beam up at the white dog, and it washed around him and struck the ceiling above him, forming an icy blue stalactite that crashed down onto the Diamond Dog like it was made of goo, engulfing her.

Rarity spun-kicked at Springer, only to be blocked by her ear, which was stronger than it looked, its fluff easily muffling and absorbing the force of her strike. Rarity kicked again and again while Twilight used her magic to start grabbing rocks and gems around the area. When Twilight had amassed an impressive collection of levitated objects, she started to launch them, one at a time, at the Dog from unexpected angles. But the imperious Diamond Dog's ears easily batted each attack aside like the attacks on her, and even Rarity and Twilight themselves, were but minor annoyances.

Twilight sent all of her gathered debris at the Diamond Dog to engulf her in a ball of gemstone and rock, but the Dog's surprising strength allowed her to break out of it by stretching casually. Twilight looked around for something else to throw, and Rarity kept on attacking until her strongest somersault-kick was caught by the dog with one ear, her neck grabbed when another ear wrapped around the mare's neck. And most of her body. She had big ears.

Silver teleported and appeared behind that Diamond Dog in a flash of blue light, gripping her body from behind and suplexing her head-first into the ground hard enough to daze her, and he formed three replicas of himself. Rarity, being held up by the dog, was fine. Silver's three doppelgangers teleported large and ornate magical swords into their magical blue grips and prepared to strike the downed Dog, noticed the "TV-Y7" rating in the corner, frowned, and plunged their swords diagonally down...

Into the ground beneath Springer, using their swords as levers to tip the dazed and furious Diamond Dog into the pit as she started to regain her senses, angrily swinging her ears and paws at the walls, unable to grab onto them and start digging..

Rock barreled into those three clones with swords, taking them by surprise, and they vanished on contact, turning into faint wisps of magical blue smoke. Shocked, Rock fell through them and into a forming blue portal Silver made, before he could grab the earth walls and try to dig to a better position.

Still standing on his hooves, the real silver finished expanding that portal to its full size and he formed another one, seven feet in the air above it. As the big guy picked up speed, Silver formed another portal to dunk Springer into the main portal's path, and they started to grab each other so they could push off each other and get to the dirt walls, but Silver formed another portal that launched the frozen Butcher up at the three, engulfing all three in liquid ice, which crystalized fully.

As the trio fell infinitely, Rainbow Dash flew to them, matched their downward descent, and kicked the crystal harder into the bottom portal, which swallowed them.

"AJ!" Silver declared, forming a new portal and aiming at her while the others shrunk and dissipated. Applejack was ready and waiting. A spell from Silver almost doubled her size, and she bucked the crystal of dogs back up into the air, shattering the crystal and sending all three crashing through the cave ceiling.

"You may have won this round, but we'll be baaaaaaack!" Springer shouted, getting out a remote and pressing it.

Looks like the Alpha Agents are blasting off!" The three Diamond Dogs shouted together, and soon, all three were but a far-off twinkle in the peaceful blue sky.

"Well, that was fun," Silver cheerfully said as Rarity pulled the gag off her head and stuck her head towards Twilight, so she could begin removing the magic-blocking ring screwed onto her horn.

The cave shook as explosions blasted the pit's rocky walls apart, boulders falling down upon everypony, a big one striking and pinning Rainbow Dash as it fell.

Silver, bearer of the fastest horn in the west, fired beam after beam of magic that turned the avalanche descending rocks into a pile of photographs of a grinning Silver that fluttered through the air and fell around the ponies harmlessly.

Twilight stared in surprise as he fired off mid-ranking transformative spell after mid-ranking transformative spell. His magic might not have been as mighty as hers, but she was starting to suspect that his sheer amount of magic was something special.

Twilight started making a bubble-shaped shield of purple magic around her friends, and she held it open as Rainbow Dash flew down into the bubble's range, but Silver chose that moment to jump out.

"Silver!" Twilight cried out.

"Get out of here!" He shouted, breaking into his strange foxlike sprint as orange claws of hard light formed on his hooves, letting him jump onto the walls, dig his claws into them, and keep running vertically.

"We're not leaving you behind!" Twilight insisted, leaving the shield open as Rainbow Dash entered her open bubble.

When he got high enough, surpassing the rocks, he started to jump down from wall to wall, slicing the biggest apart with his growing hardlight claws, striking each one with enough force to turn them to harmless powder, but he couldn't get them all in time, many sharp rocks still raining down towards his friends.

He teleported an Extreme Gear onto his hooves, a long cobalt-blue triangular board with three sharp orange points on the end, two more points painted on the board to form a star, all coated in darker-orange flames. Its Core was a brilliant blue spherical gemstone, though the sphere was formed with over 64 straight sides.

Stamping the back of his board, he activated its Core-granted Special Ability, accelerating time for himself as the world seemed to slow around him. Now, it was easy for him to rear up and form long-armed orange claws on his forehooves, stretching them out to grab and crush every boulder larger than a pebble on his way down until he was left hovering above Twilight's bubble, watching her in slow motion. He smiled confidently at her, waited a moment, and saw a sign of recognition on her face. Then he flew back up, casually batting away every last pebble and forming a drill of hard light with his right, grabbing onto her bubble with the left, drilling properly to the surface and setting them down on the ground before his Core's ability ran out of juice, time returning to normal once again.

Hopping off his board, he bowed for them, and Pinkie cheered.

"Thanks for helping us get Rarity back," Twilight said.

"Any time!" He announced enthusiastically, patting her back and beaming. "That was great! I heard this place was exciting, but that settled it. It's official: I'm staying in Ponyville!"

Walking back to Ponyville together, something dawned upon Twilight. "Did we learn anything from that?"

"We learned there's a Diamond Dog empire, and it wants to conquer Equestria," Silver reminded her. "And that this town might be the perfect place for a break from Canterlot."

"I meant morally." Twilight explained.

"Hmm..." Silver thought, and then he started speaking like he was reading a letter aloud. "Dear Princess Twilight. Today I learned things that seem dangerous can actually be great! Also, Extreme Gears are amazing and you should buy one now!"

Everypony laughed for different reasons, and the episode irised out.


	4. 4 - The Strength of Family

A rooster let loose its strange rooster roar to remind a certain crimson farmer, who'd been out all night, that he'd earned the right to sleep in today. Princess Celestia's vast and beautiful sun's rays bathed the charming farm in a warm spring-sun glow, and all seemed right with the world.

And then a falling meteor hit the field, causing a titanic crash and sending a monochromatic black-and-white mushroom cloud to the sky. A crash that caught Big mac's attention. He raised his head into the camera's view in surprise, and turned around. Gazing at the spreading mushroom cloud that rose from the meteor's point of impact, he braced himself and grabbed the thickest tree around him, only for the spreading clouds of black and white magical energy to phase right through him and everything else, as if the whole thing was an illusion.

Eeeyup, that was weird.

Pretty weird, alright.

And if he didn't check it out now, it would likely bite him in the butt later that day.

Ignoring the danger and heading for the point of impact, he found a crater four feet wide and ten feet deep. Jumping in, he found something small. It was small, rectangular, and thin... It appeared to be some sort of playing card, only... indestructible.

One corner, just one corner was in the ground, and it was less than an inch in the ground, like it had been thrown there by one of those weirdos who could somehow throw playing cards like they were razor-sharp discs. Peering closer to the card, as the smoke all around him started to fade away, he saw something on the black and white card. At the top, the letter 'V', followed by three letter 'I's. At the bottom, one word in black-outlined white text, "Strength". And in the center, a monochromatic drawing of an eyeless mare with a wide, shark-toothed grin, her hooves wrapped around the neck of a life-sized stuffed-toy lion with button eyes and a stitched frown. She had already wrapped her hooves around the animal's neck, and she had sprung into the air and turned to the side, using the weight of her body to unbalance the plush Lion and pull his head down to strike the ground beneath them.

An intense aura of magical energy seeped into the air and simmered around this strange card, which seemed to be... calling to him.

"Nnnope," He flatly said, turning around and getting out of the crater.

"Nnnope," He repeated as he walked back to his home.

"Nnnope," He repeated to himself as he walked up his wooden stairs, hopped onto his bed, and closed his eyes for a well-earned nap. "Nnnope, nnnope, nnnope, nnnope..."

* * *

He was in Ponyville for one reason and one reason alone. To reconnect with his family, make some new friends, and see Twilight more often. Some may have called that more than one reason, but he knew if he planned on getting all reasons over and done with as soon as possible, he could count them as one and therefore fit them all on one line, to save space on his mental To-Do list. His will was unstoppable, his determination overflowing, and nothing could distract him from his goals.

But he felt hungry, so Silver Star Apple chose to take a brief detour.

A detour that landed him in Sugarcube Corner, a building shaped like a giant gingerbread house. The wonderful scents of freshly baked cakes and pastries greeted him. He could forgive the absurd décor when the place smelled this good. He closed his eyes and took in a deeper breath, letting the scent fill his lungs, and there, at the counter, was a sight he'd never forget. Her bright, innocent, joyful and lively baby blue eyes, and her brighter smile. Her hot pink body, well-furred and muscles tense, like a coiled spring perpetually ready to jump... No, like a puppy perpetually ready to play. She lit up upon seeing him, the supernova of light and life growing even brighter, and he noticed what felt like a tiny smile appear on his own face as he beheld such beauty and adorable cuteness, growing into a proper smile as her infectious joy took hold in his heart. Something about her innocence made this building's décor feel less like a somewhat tacky design choice and more like something that perfectly reflected its owner's spirit.

She gasped, but not like a normal pony. Instead, it was a massive, overdramatic audible inhalation of air, her mouth stretching open so widely that a snake would have backed away nervously. And yet, somehow, on this incredibly open and honest mare, who didn't seem to have an untruthful bone in her body, it seemed perfectly genuine. "Hi, I'm Pinkie Pie! Welcome to Sugarcube Corner! What would you like?" She asked happily.

"You." He almost blurted out, but managed to restrain himself. "Do you do milkshakes?" Silver asked.

"Yep!" Pinkie Pie said happily. "We have chocolate, banana, strawberry and apple!"

"Strawberry, please." Silver said, because that was his favourite flavour. Not Apple. Apples were alright, and they tasted great after doing something epic, but his true love was the flavour of strawberries.

"Just stay right here." Pinkie said in excitement, and she rushed off into the back room, leaving behind a pink blur. The odd slurping sound of a milkshake machine pouring its contents into a glass could be heard, followed by the higher-pitched sound of foam entering a glass. That same pink blur rushed back to the counter while carrying a tall glass filled with a pink liquid, a light white froth on the top, a strawberry impaled perfectly on the glass's edge - though not squashed enough to cause precious berry juice to leak down the glass's side - and a blue bendy straw in the drink's center. Without even slightly disturbing the liquid within, she placed the drink on the counter with grace impressive even for an Earth Pony, the very picture of naturally-superior magic-enhanced balance and skill. "That'll be two bits!"

Silver's horn started to glow, summoning forth a tome-sized orange fabric bag with his Cutie Mark on it, opening it up, and taking out two bits. He gave them to her, dismissed his bag, and happily levitated his drink closer to him with his magic as she took the bits and placed them in a register. "Thanks!" Pinkie said happily.

Silver took his drink, sat down at the table nearest to her, closed his eyes, and sipped his straw.

His eyes widened in surprise when the liquid graced his tongue, the incredible sweetness overwhelming his senses as his mind focused more and more on that drink, trying to decipher what made it so amazingly wonderful.

"This is... delicious!" He whispered to Pinkie, light sparkling in his widening blue eyes. Never had he experienced such sensory delight!

She giggled cutely. "Yep!" She said happily. "I made today's batch myself!"

"I love-" Silver blurted out, and then quickly switched what he was going to say. "This drink!" He said happily. "What's its secret ingredient?"

"Love!" She chirped happily.

He kept his smile bright as he screamed internally in rage, needing to know the ingredient.

Perhaps a little too cheerfully, he got up and leaned on Pinkie's desk, smiling brightly as he asked, "Come on, from one food expert to another... Surely, you could tell me the REAL secret ingredient, right?"

She smiled happily. "Nope!" She chirped. "Mr and Mrs Cake wouldn't want me telling anypony."

Undaunted, Silver pressed again, bringing out The Voice. "They don't have to know, and I certainly won't tell them. Just Whisper It Into My Ear, and I promise I won't tell another living pony."

"Pinkie Promise?" Pinkie asked.

"Huh?" Silver asked, confused.

She leaned in, her muzzle poking his as she stared suspiciously into his eyes, possibly searching for any trace of deception. "Do you Pinkie Promise?"

"Uh, sure, just... how do I do that?" Silver asked, only a little off-balance.

"Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!" Pinkie rhymed, performing the actions. "Now, you do it!"

Silver blinked, and then performed the actions correctly with the care of a technician, glad his Cutie Mark made him great at analyzing things like movements and dance routines. Was The Voice causing her to act like this, or was she always like this? "Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye." Silver said.

"Okay, now I can tell you." Pinkie said, leaning in extremely close as her neck stretched like some kind of rubber limb. To do something like that so casually... how much Earth Pony magic did this body contain? She stage-whispered into his ear, which twitched a little when he felt her warm, sweet-smelling breath on it.

Silver blinked in surprise when she told him the secret ingredient, and then she pulled away, behind her desk once again. A tiny part of him wondered how she was so stretchy and powerful, but most of his mental processing power was busy processing this new information. "Huh." He said in surprise.

He went back to his drink, taking another sip. "Well, I like it." He said, and she grinned happily.

He then licked up some of the foam, his long tongue scooping it up and taking it into his mouth. Between licks, he spoke. "By the way, Pinkie Pie?"

"Yeah?"

"That party you threw for me when I first got to town was one of the best parties I've ever had." Silver said.

Pinkie Pie sucked in a tremendous gasp, and grinned while squeeing adorably. Rushing over to him, she hugged him so tightly she easily lifted him up, and almost managed to hurt his back. "Ohmygosh, thankyouthankyouthankyouTHANKYOU! I work really hard on all my parties and everypony says they like my parties which is nice but was my party really one of the best parties you've ever been to ever?"

"Yes." Silver said.

Some odd energy built up within her as she let go, sat on her haunches, and squashed down into herself as her body shook and vibrated with power. Suddenly, she sprung up with enough force to resemble a firework, leaving behind a sparkling pink trail, hot pink and baby blue explosions happening indoors crafted from sheer joy as she spread out her limbs. "Woohooooo!" She cheered, hovering somehow at the peak of her jump.

Silver stared, open-mouthed. "...Hah?" He asked in confusion. There was Earth Pony magic, and then there was... whatever this was. Something this powerful... he wondered what she'd be capable of if she became an Alicorn.

This couldn't be possible. He didn't sense any Unicorn magic, or any illusions, or anything else that could explain it. Pinkie Pie just... did that, through pure Earth Pony magic, even though it shouldn't have been possible.

Some day, he'd get to the bottom of that. There simply had to be a scientific reason for this, and some day, he'd find it. But not today, because today, he had a farmer to reconnect with.

She landed, and then hugged him again, these thoughts meeting the shelf as he realized that not only was this adorable pony was touching him, but she was soft and fluffy and huggable. "Can I please plan your birthday party? I promise it'll be even better! Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleeease?" She begged.

"Ok." Silver said happily, a little surprised. He wondered why he felt so oddly... young... around her. Her cheerful, foallike innocence was absolutely infectious, but how? Even his keen eyes didn't detect anything on her face besides genuine happiness and joy that a friend liked her parties, so could that be it? He'd spent so long around Canterlot ponies, where fake smiles hid dark hearts and those who seemed to have nothing to hide always had something under the table. But this pony... was nice. And the more time he spent around her, the younger he felt. "You're, um... you're really cute." Silver said like a lovestruck colt.

"Thanks!" She chirped cutely. "You're cute, too."

"I'm not cute." Silver grumbled cutely. "I'm the Sky Scion! I'm the King of Games! I'm the Twelve-Hooved Dragon of the New World! I'm a super-special-awesome triple-blackbelt Unicorn!"

She giggled. "A cute... that!"

He smiled. "Like this?" He asked, turning to the side and putting a playful smirk on his face as he placed the straw in his mouth and sipped.

"Hmm..." Pinkie thoughtfully judged while taking an incredibly 'thinking' pose that could only look genuine on her, stroking the base of her muzzle with a hoof.

"Or like this?" Silver asked, bringing his head down and looking up at her while sipping from the milkshake, which wad now beneath him, looking almost like an innocent little foal.

Back in the Silver Spire, Aquilla - or rather, Talon Terra - paused her butt-kicking of eight henchponies repeatedly knocked back into her stone-covered claws by flying boulders and dramatically looked back while the blue and white streams of fabric tied to her black catsuit fluttered in the wind, sensing a disturbance in the universe so strong, she felt it from inside the latest issue of the Power Ponies, though she doubted anyone else had a connection with him strong enough to feel it.

And far away, back in a place Silver had left behind long ago, a large orange-coated mare with a grey ponytail and golden-orange eyes prepared to buck an apple tree. She paused in mid-buck as the disturbance washed over her, and ended up falling to the ground. "Star..." She muttered angrily as she got up. Turning her head back to the tree, she drew her body back and bucked that tree hard enough to send splinters flying out as all the apples fell straight down, even the baby apples, with no regard for where she'd placed her baskets. Making the 'Eeyup, that looks about right' expression you'd usually see on a sad Manehattanite whose private magically-driven chariot parking space had been stolen once again, she let go of her rage and began to pick up her good and put them into her baskets while stamping the bad ones into the ground.

"Or like THIS?" Silver asked, horn glowing as he held the milkshake in his hoof, the straw rising up into the air and floating towards his mouth, which his long pony tongue extended towards, curving around the straw's end to form a pipe leading from the straw to his mouth.

"Nah." Pinkie decided.

"Or like this?" He asked as his horn lit up. Stainless steel was summoned forth and moulded into a long and spectacularly complex crazy straw with over twelve loop-de-loops and ten drill-like spirals and a slightly pointed end that allowed it to force its way into his current straw's tip, a quick thought turning the metal translucent.

Silver Star began to suck, and it took almost half a minute of sucking while Pinkie cheered him on before the wonderfully sweet liquid finally entered his mouth in a controlled stream. Silver gave his milkshake the legendary ultra suck, and Pinkie, enthralled, watched the liquid rapidly rise through the crazy straw like it was a lava lamp, the cup's contents draining in just four seconds.

Once it was done, he slammed his glass down like a real man, and exhaled air victoriously. And then, he passed the Epic Crazy straw to her. "You can keep this," He offered.

She gasped, and squeed. "But it's not my birthday!" She chirped happily.

That was an unusually cheery reaction to being given an unusual straw. Did she not get gifts often, or did she just really like getting gifts? "Would you like it for your birthday?" He offered.

"I shouldn't know what my birthday gift is gonna be, silly!" Pinkie giggled.

Normally, Silver found himself feeling unspeakably infuriated when insulted even a little, but from Pinkie, being called silly didn't feel anywhere near as insulting as it would be from a boring and lame normal pony.

"Alright... You can have this now, and I'll get you something else for your birthday." Silver decided. A quick spell turned the crazy straw a shade of blue that matched his eyes, with an orange stripe 0.25cm tall every four or so loops and at the top and bottom of every spiral, and he passed it to her with his hooves, which he knew meant more to some ponies.

She took it, put it on her desk, squeed, and stretched her upper body over to him so she could hug him tight. He happily hugged back, rubbing the side of his face on hers. She was so warm, and soft, and fluffy, and cuuute! He wanted to take her home with him and love her and cuddle her forever and she'd be all his and- no, that was weird, he'd just hug her whenever he saw her.

She suddenly pulled away, blushing. "Woah, settle down, cuddle bug!"

"Look who's talking!" Silver chuckled.

She giggled. "Still, we've just met!"

"I know, and I like you already." He said with a grin, and then thoughtfully said. "Though you do make a good point... May we meet again, some day!" He declared, and teleported away in a flash of blue light.

Pinkie Pie sighed dreamily.

* * *

As another Silver Star walked up towards Sweet Apple Acres's main gate, he saw Applejack bucking trees near the place's entrance, baskets all around him as one good kick sent all the apples falling. "Howdy, welcome to Sweet Apple Acres!" Applejack greeted warmly and energetically. Thankfully, she didn't do that odd rearing-thing Braeburn did when welcoming new ponies to his town. And the way he said the town's name... What even was that, anyway? "Ah'm Applejack."

"Good morning." Silver Star said to her in his Twilight-esque Correct-Pronounciation Canterlot accent. "I am Silver Star, Gentlepony Adventurer, Gentlepony 'Acquisitions Expert', and decidedly UN-Gentle master of the duelling arena. I'm here because I'm thinking of investing in some local businesses, and nothing says guaranteed profit like a farm."

"Really?" She asked, pleasantly surprised. "Well, butter my biscuit! Is there anything you'd like to check over first?"

Silver's horn flashed blue, and summoned a flock of golden ravens with black beady eyes. They took flight and soared over the farm, leaving the two alone. "They'll get back to me," He said. "Is there anything you'd like to ask me while we're waiting?"

"Well, Ah've been t'Manehattan when Ah was younger, but Ah always wondered... What's life like over in the fancy part of Canterlot?" She asked.

"It's pretty good. There's always something going on, and there's always somepony with something to say, sell, or suck at. There's never a dull moment, unless you're in an elevator, which I don't bother using. The theatres and their shows are amazing, the restaurants are superb, and the nightclubs are spectacular. I'm not actually native to Canterlot, I moved there in search of money and excitement. I'm a businesspony, which means I have to manage and micromanage a lot of things. Restaurants, stores, travelling merchants in my union, R-and-D teams, farmers, my supermarket chain, my chain restaurants, bars and taverns and pubs, and so on. I enjoy that, even if it does get irritating sometimes. Still, I have a lot of free time to spend practising magic, setting up the next Duelling League event, and adventuring. I started from the bottom with nothing at all, and now, here I am. And every time I feel the overwhelming pretentiousness of rich hypocrites and gold-digging frauds starting to get to me, I spend some time with those I work with, to remind myself what really matters."

"Well, that's nice. Ah spend most of mah time helping out at the farm, but I still try 'n' make tahm fer mah friends. If ya don't mahnd mah askin'... What d'ye mean by irritatin'?"

"Well... While most of the places I get are okay, some of the places I purchase need a LOT of work done before I could consider them functional. For example, this one startup that didn't seem to understand the concept of supply and demand or even basic crop rotation, or a restaurant whose prices and standards for food were just... terrible, absolutely terrible. It took a lot of work to get them working, but it was necessary. Every move I make, every purchase and every investment, has to be calculated to perfection, and then perfected again beyond that. Countless ponies are relying on me for a solid paycheck, and one mistake could ruin us all. But still, it's a rewarding job, and an exciting one. And when I feel that kind of pressure getting to me, I remember why I wanted this in the first place. I don't just try to squeeze as much money as possible out of everything I see, I try to make things as great as they can be. I want orphans to eat better, I their want food to be tastier, I want delivery services to be faster and more reliable, and I want their Extreme Gears to go faster, I want gardens filled with flowers and opened to the public, I want home defence and town defence weapons to be available and affordable for the average pony, I want to make this world better. I make sure everything is the best it can be. It may not always be optimal, profit-wise, but I have enough money. And the world could always be more beautiful."

"Well, that's mighty decent of ya." Applejack said as she smiled, starting to like him.

'Great, now we're friends. That was easy,' He thought. 'Now, where's the next one?'

'No, I came here to talk to Applejack, and tell her what happened to me, so that's what I'm going to do.' He decided.

"There's something I wanted to know... What's it like to be an Element of Harmony?" He asked.

"Well, I've got some great friends I know've always got mah back. And getting to go to places like Canterlot and the Crystal Empire has beem fun. But mah day to day life ain't changed much, 'part from the occasional friendship problem or giant monster attack. Ah'm still buckin' apples, and Ah'm still an Apple Pony, through and through."

"That's nice. Speaking of farmwork, I know a pony who can get you some of the best automatons on the market. She offers good deals on vehicles, too, but she'll only make them if they're awesome enough for her. We're talking high-spec high-performance works of art here, Tetramand engines firing on all cylinders into mana-burning-"

"Woah there, Ah'm not sure Ah want some fancy arcane science thing running around mah farm."

"Don't worry, this isn't amateur hour. This is Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! For the vehicles. For the Automatrons, every day's a working day. These things will patrol your farm, buck apples, help around on the farm, and smile like a cute puppy when you tell him or her or it that it's a good and very helpful automaton. In fact, I can even ask her to make it look like a dog."

"Thanks, but I already have a dog." Applejack said, thinking of Winona.

"Cool. How about an apple? Something with a head, legs, and a giant apple-shaped body."

"That actually sounds kinda weird." Applejack admitted, imagining a dog's head and legs on a big red apple.

"Don't worry, I'll ask her not to give it spider legs. So, how about a bird? Or a pony that could realistically pass for a family member? Making it look exactly like somepony while putting it to work for that pony is just asking trouble, so how about I switch her colours around, and make her mane brown, like apple trees? Brown is, after all, the worst colour. In fact, since you run a farm, that's guaranteed regular income. How about we raise the quality of the internals, and I work out a payment plan?"

"Well, thanks for the offer, but ah'm not really interested in-"

"What if I pointed out that automatons don't need to sleep, eat, or take breaks, which means one could easily work from dusk till dawn, with no breaks, not slowing down for a second, expecting no reward save your smile? If you're worried about the magical energies messing with your farm's produce - Which you shouldn't be, since she's not an amateur and she'll shield its magical core properly - then I'll ask her to make it steam-powered, so it'll only take water as fuel. Steam isn't concentrated mana, but it's still cleaner-burning than Charcoal. More efficiency than a farmhoof at the same cost. Come on, steam-powered iron- Actually? I'm feeling generous, let's make it stainless steel. Steam-powered stainless steel automaton, level one intelligence, on a payment plan that'll make it no more expensive than hiring a farmhoof for a while. Going once!"

"Maybe some other time?" Applejack offered. "Closer to Zap Apple harvest season."

"Looking at all these apple trees, surely they were planted at different intervals. Apples all year round, right?" Silver asked.

"Well, yeah, but we can harvest apples just fine all year round. But we could use the help during Zap Apple harvesting season, so... I'll see you then."

"Makes sense, just visit my store whenever you're ready to order. The order should take around one or two weeks, some parts take a while to make. Just don't enter one of these into a robot battle arena."

"Why not?" Applejack asked, expecting a grave warning.

"Her dedicated combat bots are far more suited for the job, that's why." Silver explained. "Hey, have you ever been to the Grand Library in Manehattan?"

"Once or twice."

"I love that place, and I donated quite a few of the books you'll find there. I hunger for knowledge the way some hunger for food. Of course, I like that, too," He admitted. "So, Applejack... Have you recognized me yet?"

"Huh? Can't say I've seen you before today, except on the cover of some magazine at Nurse Redheart's that one time. Why?"

Silver sighed. "It's understandable. I have changed a lot since you last saw me. Basically, I'm somepony from... Actually, could we go into your barn? It's a lot easier to set up the best privacy spells when you're inside a building."

Some strange pony wanted to take her into her own barn, and cover the place in 'Privacy spells'? "Well, that ain't happenin'," She said flatly.

"Too late!" Silver Star's voice called out to her from just outside the barn, hi-fiving another instance of himself. "We've already taken the place of every map on the planet for the next week!"

"Try and catch us, Filly!" The second Silver shouted, and they rushed into the barn.

"Why, you little-" Applejack shouted, rushing into the barn.

And what she saw stunned her.

On the left, Silver Star, his suit removed and thrown at the ground before him. He stood his two rear hooves, pointing his forehooves at the pony between him and the Silver Star on the right, who matched his pose exactly.

The pony between them, sitting atop an identical black suit... Was a colt. A small colt, with an orange body, a short silver mane, a long and wavy dark-orange tail with a silver streak running through the middle and spreading at the end to form an arrow... and those big and bright baby-blue eyes, happily looking at her like he hadn't seen her in years, even though he didn't look like a day had passed since the last time she saw him.

"Star?" Applejack asked the colt in shock. "Star Apple?"

"Howdy, cousin!" The colt greeted her with a bright grin. "Ah go by Silver Star now, but-"

She rushed over and hugged him, tears in her eyes as she crushed him.

"Hey," The foal whispered as he rapidly grew in her hooves, his body colour and tail colour switching themselves around like they were living liquid paint on a moving canvas. "Not so tight, Jackie."

He'd expected her to be furious. He'd expected her to demand an explanation, a full summary of his life and everything that happened to him. But instead, all she did was hold him tightly, strong and a little crushing, as if she was terrified she'd lose him again.

They didn't move, and they didn't say anything. The two Silvers left the original alone, and vanished in flickers of blue light. Even when the Ravens disappeared and sent an urgent message to his mind, he ignored it. He could tell how much she needed this.

Her Star had returned, and for now, that was all she cared about.

* * *

But he wasn't the only Star in town.

Silver Star was seated in a large faux-leather wheeled office chair, behind a counter, talking to three more Silver spares: One, casually leaning against his desk, looking down on him. Another, lying on the top of a bookshelf stocked with food for sale, on his side like a cat. And in the air above them, a third, reading a comic book as he hung upside-down on a stationary and dull-looking grey oval of an Extreme Gear board.

"Operation Avalanche is ready, and awaiting your orders." The smug Silver at the desk said to the seated Silver.

With semi-amused indifference, the shelved Silver spare spoke. "We've developed the Sustained Extraction Spell for Operation Bread Slice."

"Good," The seated Silver said evilly. "But... How's Operation Underwear going?"

The shelved Silver spare chuckled. "Still can't believe we called it that," He confided to his friends.

"Hey, nopony's going to guess what something called Operation Underwear really is." The seated Silver reminded him.

"Then we should have called it Operation Cloud. Or Operation Wheel," The standing Silver grumbled.

The seated Silver grew irritated. "No, WE have to know what we're talking about when we talk about the plan. But nobody else can! Come on, how old are you?"

"Five years," Standing Silver boasted, his tail pushing against the desk to let him lean as he folded his hooves.

"He made you before another him read the book that gave him that idea, didn't he?" Seated Silver asked.

"Yeah, and I've spent the last five years doing a whole lot more than you've done, two-weeker!" He boasted.

"Hey, now," The Shelved Silver caught their attention. "You know the rules: We can't fight with ourselves, so save it for ponies we don't like. Speaking of which, HEY, BOARDER! HOW'S OPERATION PANTS-ON-HEAD GOING?"

Without looking away from his comic, the board-riding Silver spare spoke. "Operation Underwear has hit a wall, and Silver decided that's what it's called, stop trying to change its name. The theory's sound, but the current mixture's unstable and we're only getting a 15% success rate during the binding process, and each instance loses too much material to be of any use. We need additional entities to act as solvents – By the way, my 'EvolutioNext' theory needs testing but I think it could enhance our current materials – and our scouts have uncovered some worlds with acceptable life forms, but we'll need Silver to sign off on some proper excursions before-"

A proximity alarm alerted them through audio a distinctive half-second-long combination of sounds: The sound of jingling coins as one hollow block of wood fell on another twice.

The Silver stationed at the counter got ready to flee, as his companions teleported away in flashes of blue light. Then, he paused, remembering that this was his shift. He quickly put on a charming smile that grew genuine when he saw the cute mare that entered the building.

"Hello!" A grey Pegasus with a yellow mane cheerily greeted him as she walked in, the movement of one golden eye matched in reverse by her other as she looked around the store.

"Welcome to Silver's Sundries, buy six Lava Lances and get a free Lavalanche Scroll!" Silver declared, spawning a blackened metal stick six feet in length, one end topped with a jagged triangular fragment of liquid darkness and solid crimson magma seven feet in length, and a small papyrus scroll, its top end attached to a cheap cardboard cylinder. "Good for three uses!"

"Uhh... Hey, what's that?" The Pegasus asked, pointing a hoof at a silver-streaked cobalt-blue tracksuit worn by one of Silver's mannequins.

"Ah, I see you are a mare of taste!" Silver said in approval.

"I am?" Derpy said in surprise.

His horn lit up and the tracksuit flew through the air, encased in a blue glow, showing itself off to her at the optimal viewing angle. That is to say, showing off its butt.

"Absolutely! So, Derby-" He began, adding layers of honey to his voice.

"It's Derpy."

"Really?" He asked in surprise, his voice honey-free, and then he realized his mistake. He fought to stay calm and in control, resisting the urge to spin out like a Pegasus tumbling through the center of a tornado, unable to fly or right himself, making a complete fool of himself. He forced a charming smile, and began to feel it for real. "Sorry, I just knew a mare named Derby growing up, she loved racing and wanted to join the Wonderbolts more than anything in the world."

"That's nice. Did she join them?"

He looked to the side, as if he'd just heard and smelled somepony pas gas. "No, she couldn't handle the pressure of living in a bootleg boot camp full of genuinely terrible ponies used to getting away with the stuff they pull due to being celebrities... or the pressure of getting yelled at and called inadequate by a mediocre circus performer convinced she's the world's toughest drill sargeant just because she's been given the right to yell at young idealists who can't yell back for fear of being treated worse and ruining their shot at what they're told is the only way to achieve their dreams. Like all idiots in broken systems, they're terrible because when they joined, their bosses were terrible to them. And now, having rationalized the jerkery as something inherent in the system, they pass it on to the next generation of circus performers." He looked back at her, and smiled. "Anyway, after she quit and felt sad for a while, she got into some local street races over in Manehattan, bought some of my patented speed-boosting flightsuits, and she's now the fastest thing in the circuit."

"Isn't it cheating to use magic to go faster in races?" Derpy wondered.

He chuckled, as if the question was funny to him. In truth, it was because he'd already practiced this particular question and response. "Is it cheating to move checkers in a board game?"

"Uh... no."

"Is it cheating to move chess pieces differently from how you move checkers?"

"I don't... think it is."

"If you were forced to compete with a Wind Mage in an Iron Pony competition, would it be cheating for you to use your wings to do what the Wind Mage is already doing with magic?"

"I don't know."

"Is it cheating to be _awesome?_ The rules of a race set out what is and isn't acceptable, and if they say you're allowed to wear clothes, I say you're allowed to let those clothes do this."

His tail whipped out and struck the flank of a mannequin clad in a blue tracksuit, and it began to vibrate as what sounded like a mechanical whir became audible. Like a bottle rocket, it suddenly flew through from its position to the far end of the room, embedding itself in the ceiling right up to its neck, like an launched arrow.

"Woah," She said, impressed.

"The enchantments of these tracksuits are powerful, and impossible for anypony short of a trained professional on my level or above to detect. They don't activate until you pass the fourty mile an hour mark. And when you do, the magic happens. You now have access to a pool of magic you can use at will to generate a shield of air around you, a shield with a pointed tip for maximum aerodynamic efficiency. Or, you can use more magic, taking that shield of wind and turning it into a constant slipstream. Wear one of these, and the wind will always be on your side. Finally, if the course gets crashed by a giant monster attack, you can create gusts of wind and unbreakable bubbles of air, and launch them like cannonballs from any part of your body covered by this tracksuit. You'd be hard pressed to find anything quite so powerful." He said, giving the tracksuit a long bodily stroke that made her wings flutter. "Enough charge for one race, two hundred bits. Make that three hundred and the first five refills are on the house!"

The excitement suddenly went away from her face. "Oh, um... Got anything a little more affordable?" She asked hopefully.

"Affordable? These are competitively priced, finely crafted, and without equal or peer! But, alright. If your bitbag is somewhat malnourished, we have these," He said, sticking his right forehoof out to the side and summoning some magical necklaces into existence, wrapped around his hoof.

"These little charms are coated in steel for extra protection, but at their core, there's a highly conductive metal called copper. Juuust enough to hold a good magical charge. Some enchanting stores, they'll force low-quality unstable enchantments into the only gemstones strong enough to contain them, or they'll put meaningless gems on it and enchant them to glow so it'll look cooler, they're all flash and no substance."

A playful smirk on his face, he dramatically looked down at the tracksuit, Derpy's eyes – well, her main one – following his, and he stroked the tracksuit again. "And then there's me, who has to wonder... Who says you can't have both?"

"Wow..." She whispered.

He leaned forwards, and gazed deeply into her eyes. "Do you know why soaring through the sky so fast you can rip right through a tornado..." He purred. "Is like staring into the eyes of a pony that loves you more than anything else in the world?"

Derpy smiled awkwardly. "I've never done either of those?"

"It's the moment when you realize when your life is truly yours. Sure, you may have jobs to work on and friends to spend time with, but when it comes down to it, your free time is truly your own, and you can enjoy it however you want. Sure, you have responsibilities to the civilization that spawned you, and the world you were born into, but when you're done with them, you can do whatever you want. So go on, live a little! It's your money, after all."

"Actually, it's my foal's." She explained apologetically.

He thought for a moment. "Say... You're a delivery mare, right?" He asked.

"How can you tell?" She asked.

"I run a shipping company. Anyway, how's that working out?"

"Um... Good. My boss says if I deliver three more first-class packages without any breakages, I can get a raise!"

"Become my delivery mare and I'll give you that raise right now," Silver offered.

"Sold!" She cheered.

"Great! Here's your uniform." Silver said, and suddenly had a cat-sized cardboard box in his hooves, slamming it on the table. His magic opened it up, she peered inside, and his magical blue glow levitated out...

The stylish speed-enhanced blue tracksuit she'd been eyeing since she'd entered the room.

"Thank you so much!" She said, hugging him.

"Hug me later, that uniform's cost is coming out of a weekly cut of your paycheck until it's paid off." He pointed out.

"Totally worth it!" She declared.

* * *

Silver didn't know how long he and Applejack spent in that barn, but he did know that right when he was about to open her mouth and start asking some of the many questions she had fighting for dominance in her head, the barn's door slammed open. An impressive feat, considering the size of barn doors.

"WHAT IN TARNATION?!" Granny Smith screeched.

Applejack screamed and Silver reflexively turned into a writhing swarm of steel-grey blue-eyed mechanical crows that escaped her grasp and converged a few feet to the side, back in his black suit once more. "This is NOT what it looks like!" Applejack insisted.

"I know what this is!" Granny Smith shouted, picking up a broom and brandishing it threateningly.

"No you don't!" Silver said rapidly, skipping over a comma that really should have been there, gramatically speaking. "We were like that because, uh..."

He couldn't think of anything that didn't also reveal his identity, which meant it was time for an old classic. A charming grin formed on his face.

"HI, SILVER STAR HERE!" He suddenly bellowed.

"What?" Granny Smith wondered in confusion, lowering the broom.

"What are you doing?" Applejack asked.

He couldn't stop now. "Have you experienced aches, pains, cell destruction, telomere degeneration, bone degeneration, bone displacement, limb misplacement, hip replacement, organ misplacement, classical gas, or any other signs of ageing?" Silver asked the elderly mare.

"No, I'm a spring chicken," Granny Smith said sarcastically.

"Not yet, you're not! But don't despair, there's a way! To repair! That problem!" Silver declared while posing, summoning a small orange-star-marked grey tin tub of skin cream onto an outstretched hoof. "Introducing the all-new Silver Star Cream! Just rub it into your face, and you'll look and feel like a young mare in no time!"

"I ain't fallin' for any of that fancy-shmancy fake cure-all ponyfeathers again," Granny growled.

"Again?!" Silver gasped, dropping the act. "Tell me who scammed you, give me a name!"

"Who, the Flim Flam Brothers?" Granny Smith asked.

"They just went up my list." Silver decided.

"Forget that! I don't know what kind of fancy-shmancy magic-" Granny Smith began.

"Silver Star Cream contains Senzu Bean extract, sap from the tree of life, liquefied mana from yours truly, and over thirty different active ingredients found in other creams! Act now and I'll throw in two full paint cans of Silver-Seal sealant liquid!" Silver declared, summoning them as well. "Saw a boat in half and repair it! Shoot holes through a bucket, and repair it with this! The only magic-repellant liquid rubber sealant legal in Equestria! You want your Apple Cellar to double as a shelter for all kinds of magical explosions? That's on the table, with the power of Silver-Seal! Act now for the low low price of thirty-nine bits!"

"I said, I don't care what kind of magic you cast on Applejack, ye've got three seconds-"

Silver shrunk slightly as his age reverted, and he threw his suit off to reveal that he was two colts in a suit all along. "Howdy, Granny!" Star Apple said cheerfully.

Granny blinked. "Star Apple? Is that you?"

"Yep!" They replied in chorus.

"You became a suit?!" She asked in open shock.

"I became king of the suits!" The top Silver boasted.

Far away, in Las Pegasus, somepony with a magical copyright on card puns noticed her eye twitching as she became aware of an old friend's location.

"My name is Silver Star, Gentlepony Adventurer. And, in secret, Gentlepony Thief. My name is also Silver Blaze, Fastest Horn in the West. And, as some called me, Dragon of The South. And finally, I am Star Apple, Apple Family Unicorn." Silver explained, growing back to his old form in a few seconds as the colt balanced atop him vanished. "Call me whichever you'd like when we're alone, but around everypony else, I'd prefer Silver Star. Not a lot of rich ponies would take too kindly to rubbing hoof-elbows with a farm pony, or getting outsmarted by one."

"Hold on, 'Silver Blaze'? You're that bounty hunter?" Applejack asked.

With a light blue flash of his horn, Silver's coat turned cobalt blue, and his eyes turned a merciless gold. "Fastest horn in the west, merciless bounty hunter who never gives up on a mark," He growled with a strong western accent, and reverted to his previous appearance and Canterlot accent in a second. "And one of the richest ponies in the country, because nothing says easy money like investing bounty-money into above-ground businesses while you hunt the Outlaws they don't put bounties on."

"How can you switch between these bodies so fast?" Applejack asked, starting to suspect that he was a Changeling playing another one of their stupid and thoughtless "Pranks" on her.

"Mentally, a lot of practice. As for the spells, this one time, at band camp, I used one of those magic-draining spells on a Changeling that attacked a mare I was... hanging out with," Silver explained. "The monster was supercharged with the love it had already drained from everypony else in camp, and you know how strong and uncontrollable young love can be, so this was the only way to bring it down to a more punchable size. Anyway, feeling the Changeling's energies and magical capabilities running through my horn meant I could synthesize and replicate those energies, and cast the spells that give Changelings their abilities. Shapeshifting, using a modified hive mind spell to sense the location of nearby Changelings, I can even spit Changeling eggs that hatch and obey me if I want! But I don't like doing that."

"I thought only Changeling Queens could spit eggs." Applejack noted.

"Changelings aren't proper life forms, they're beings of dark magic, insects with unstable morphing fields and no real intelligence. Queen is just the title they give to their biggest one, which they intentionally feed the most the most love during its youth, so it can get bigger and produce more Changelings. No changeling is really a he or she, physically speaking, they're all just Its."

"Hey, we'll have none of that talk in here!" Applejack insisted. "I don't care what they were, Changelings are our friends now."

"Scientifically speaking, they don't really get friendship for the same reason they don't see love as anything more than a food source-" Silver said, and blinked. "Did you just say they're our friends now?! What, did Twilight magic the parasitic nature out of them?"

"No, they turned themselves good." Applejack explained.

"Like one turned itself into Cadence that one time?" He suggested doubtfully. "Whatever, I'll look into that later. Who wants to hear about my epic life story? It has to be at least a few hundred thousand words long."

"Ah've always got time fer family," Applejack decided.

"Tell it in yer own time, sweetie." Granny Smith said, and picked up the paint cans and tiny jar of skin cream he'd summoned. "And d'ya want this back?"

"Keep 'em, they're on the house." Silver decided, walking over to a hay bale. He breathed in, sat down on the bale, reverted to his Silver Blaze form, and closed his eyes. "It all started a long time ago, on a small farm to the west. A hardy frontier town barely a year older than me. A place called Manetanner. I was always different, but not like the others. I was..."

A tremendous crash caught their attention. Leaving the barn while Silver dressed himself and did the same, they saw birds take flight, fleeing from far-off trees.

"Apple Bloom's farmin' over that way!" Applejack remembered in panic, and she rushed off after her sister. Silver followed, and an energy wave from his right horseshoe allowed both of them to run faster.

They expected devastation, they expected a horrific sight they could never unsee. They hoped it would be nothing, and they hoped that if it couldn't be nothing, and if they couldn't see a big old boring farm full of nothing today, then they could instead see something only about as awful as some big monster grabbing Apple Bloom and throwing her away, or less awful than that.

Applejack and Silver Star were shocked when they came across what was almost entirely normal... Except for how a very shocked Apple Bloom was posed on two legs, rear in the air, as if she'd just kicked a currently-missing part of the destroyed tree stump behind her. Silver circled her and checked in the direction behind the small Earth Pony filly, and saw an old Apple tree flying like a thrown rock as it violently shattered and ploughed through other trees, and eventually hit the ground and rolled to a stop.

"Consarn it, Apple Bloom, what did you do now?" Applejack demanded sternly, but fairly.

Silver, on the other hoof, was openly impressed by the small equine. "Woah," He said, and grinned. "So, how long have you been following the Silver Diet?"

"Huh?" Apple Bloom asked, tilting her head.

"I just told a hilarious joke," Silver explained. "A while ago, when fad diets were getting popular, I made my own, with a built-in daily exercise regimen. And it was actually healthy, unlike every other fad diet ever. Eventually, everypony who followed fad diets followed that one, and nopony was willing to give up the actual health benefits of my regimen, so the whole industry collapsed when everyone decided to stop talking about them. I am, hilariously, implying that you became this strong by following my fad diet, which I named The Silver Diet. This is also an unspoken prompt for you to tell me how you became this strong."

"I saw a crater from a meteor!" Apple Bloom declared. "And I checked it out and the ground around it fell apart so I fell in but I found a card and it jumped onto my hoof and sank into it! I can't get it out, but I'm really strong now!"

Silver's eyes widened in recognition. "The size of a regular playing card? With a picture, featuring some young pony and some stuffed animals, entirely monochro- entirely black and white, except for one tiny splash of colour? And a name like The World, or The Star, or The Hermit, or Strength-?"

"Yeah!" Apple Bloom chirped happily. "That one!"

A fake look of horror overtook his face. "I need to save your life by magically extracting that card, before it's too late!" Silver announced, grabbed Apple Bloom with a flash of blue magic and teleporting away, leaving Applejack and Apple Bloom alone.

A second later, Silver returned with nothing. "Why can't I teleport you with me?" He asked, horn lighting up and beaming a thin blue horizontal line of light at her as he scanned her.

A smoke bomb was thrown through the air, and it landed in the ground between all three ponies. Silver's horn flashed to summon something as the smoke bomb released not just thick dark-grey smoke, but also the sound of a large explosion and a blinding flash of light.

"Here we go!" Three canine Diamond Dogs announced as they leapt into the smoke.

"It's all for one..." A classy female began.

"And one for the long haul!" A Manehattanite female continued.

Loud metal music suddenly blared from inside the smoke cloud, and somepony struck the large dog in the face hard enough to clear the whole dust cloud.

Like a pebble skimming across the surface of a lake, the big Diamond Dog bounced along the ground, landing on his face every time until he eventually hit a tree face-first, and stopped. An Apple fell on his head, to add insult to injury, and he angrily got up. Another apple landed on his head, and he furiously punched the apple tree, only to send a rain of apples falling down on his head.

When the dust cleared, Silver was in the center of it all, standing upright, balanced on two hooves, looking away from everypony while an unusual star-shaped five-pointed orange glass visor balanced itself on his nose and covered his eyes. In a far lower and gravelly tone than usual, Silver spoke. "I'm here to take cards and take names..." He growled, grinned, and paused to let the background music intensify. "And I'm not leaving until I get both."

All the females around him gazed at him in awe.

And then, one of them spoke.

"Why are you talking like that?" Applejack asked.

"I'm wearing the Vision Of Awesomeness, one of my most powerful and reliable magically-enhanced visors," Silver growled intensely as he folded his forehooves, and everypony immediately wanted to buy 20. "It enhances my charisma and stamina, it makes me fireproof, it scans the movements of my foes even better than my eyes can, it lets me hack books, it cannot be removed by anypony other than myself, and most importantly... I needed something that would let me see through smoke, while protecting my eyes from the flash."

A far-off gruff and male voice called to them all. "You can't stop us!" Rock the Diamond Dog shouted, and he sprinted back over to the fight.

It took him a long time.

A long, long time.

Halfway there, he collapsed, gasping for air and sweating profusely.

"Seriously, Rock?" Springer demanded.

"Come on, yer killin' me here!" Butcher insisted.

"I lift stuff!" He shouted between gasps. "I throw stuff! I break stuff! I don't run at stuff!"

"Forget this!" Springer announced, grabbing Butcher and using her powerful ears to leap into the air and land beside him. They waited for Rock to get back up, and when he was ready, they began their motto.

The area around them went dark, for dramatic purposes only.

"Prepare for trouble, here on this farm!" The female figure announced, thin and lithe, with a spiralling catlike tail.

"And make it double, we're here, arm in arm!" The buff male figure with huge hands announced.

"An evil as old as the land and sea..." She began.

"Sent here to fulfill our destiny!" He continued.

A smaller third figure popped up between them. "And then, there's me!" The manehattanite voice announced.

"To eat and drink to our hearts' content!" Said the tall female.

"And hoard the rest without paying a cent!" Said the large male.

One by one, multicoloured spotlights lit up around them, properly illuminating them.

"Rock!" The top-heavy and muscular male yellow Golden Retriever-breed Diamond Dog announced, flexing his muscles and swinging his arms to his companions. His black Dog collar was studded with golden-yellow diamonds, and an open black leather jacket with torn-off sleeves adorned his chest.

"Springer!" The thin female announced, a beautiful brown Cocker Spaniel-breed Diamond Dog with massively wide fluffy ears, which had extra-fluffy bits on the end that looked kind of like fists, to make up for how incredibly thin and long her regular arms and dainty but elegantly-clawed paws were. Her body was slender, with a long brown tail, a golden open jacket with torn sleeves, big hips with long canine legs, and a thin waist her matching yellow-diamond-studded collar was secured around. She copied his pose and touched their paws together, forming a diamond.

"And Butcher's da name!" The tiny female Manehattanite dog announced, landing on their crossed arms. The author had no idea what this breed of dog was called, but she was about the size of a filly, she was covered in excessively long bone-white fur, her muzzle was small and pointed, and her eyes were soulless black dots. She had a black collar with yellow diamonds around her neck, matching the other two Dogs, and a white open jacket.

"Whenever ponies are having a ball," They announced in unison, swinging their arms around and launching Butcher into the air to backflip and land before them with both her arms raised to the sky. Springer folded her arms and stared her foes down imperiously, while Rock flexed and stuck his muscular arms towards her, all three together forming the shape of a D while a big red D appeared behind them, along with a background of black space with coloured gems for stars. "The Alpha Agents will be there, to take it all!"

An explosion of coloured blue smoke exploded behind them.

The ponies stared in shock, and blinked a few times as the background vanished and the smoke faded away.

"Wait, what's a cent?" Apple Bloom asked.

"It's the unit of currency our secret Underground Kingdom uses," Springer explained.

"Really?" Silver asked, teleporting his Vision Of Awesomeness away. "What's the exchange rate to Equestrian bits?"

"About one thousand ta-" Butcher began.

"Grr..." Rock growled, and pointed at the ponies while yelling. "That's not important! What's important that we, the Alpha Dogs, will destroy you, and take that filly's card for ourselves!"

"I thought you were called the Alpha Agents," Silver noted.

"Well, we're da fearless Alpha Dogs now!" Butcher crooned, pulling out a small green Jack In The Box, which opened up to unleash a lightning-fast rubber glove on a thin metal tail-like arm, which grabbed Apple Bloom and phased through her, closing its hand around the card inside her and pulling it back to Butcher, who gleefully held it aloft. "And we're moving on to da big leagues!"

Springer snatched the card and quickly shoved it into her own chest, the thin material turning intangible as her body practically sucked it up.

Silver blinked. "Why did none of you stop that?" He asked the mares around him.

"We thought you were going to stop that." Applejack admitted.

"And I thought I'd learn something important about cooperation and friendship today!" Silver declared furiously, teleporting away in a flash of blue light.

Something in Butcher's nonexistent pocket beeped, and she took it out. It was a small and silver pocketwatch-like device, with a green LCD screen on the front. It displayed a green grid with lines that curved more the further away they were from the center lines, and the Strength card's current location was shown by a small green dot. Butcher smiled and put the small handheld radar back.

Silver reappeared in front of Springer and spun himself around for a fierce spinning kick, and with a smirk and one ear, she blocked it.

And exactly as planned, with his free rear hoof, he bucked her, right in the face.

The slam was loud, it should have been painful, and while a shockwave from the blow ruffled the grass around them and caused a few apples around them to prematurely drop, she didn't feel a thing. "You need to brush up on your history. This card doesn't just give me strength," She explained haughtily.

Her ears wrapped around his leg and held it tight, and she began swinging her head around like a long-maned mare at a metal concert, swinging him around like one might swing a cat by its tail. "This card makes me the very definition of strength! The strongest, fastest, toughest, and most gorgeous warrior is right here, in front of you!" She declared, tossing him into the air, where he vanished.

A portal opened up next to her and he emerged, horizontal in the air, striking her in the side of the face rear-hooves-first. Then, he backflipped off her head and unleashed a tornado of flames from his horn, blasting out against her chest and writhing around it, focusing the heat, trying to overheat or consume it. Unharmed, she menacingly walked towards him, even as he roared with fury and poured more magic into the spell, sweat dripping down his face, the flames engulfing her and spiralling around her as they tried to drill into a single point, her head.

She ignored the flames and kept walking, invincible against any extremes any temperature could reach, and she swung a kick where he stood, but stood no more.

Furious, she looked around, only to instinctively duck when she somehow sensed incoming danger and exactly what it was, a magical beam of blue light that shot over her head, struck an apple tree, and turned its fruits to chocolate.

Bending over and looking at her foe through her own legs, she saw seven copies of Silver Star, each one preparing large blue balls of flame above their glowing horns.

She twisted her body and breakdanced on the spot, sending slashes of wind at the Silver Spares, but it was too late, they launched their balls of flame at her, each one converging in mid-flight before somehow transforming from a ball of flame to a glittering spike of ice twice her size, headed straight for her. She was about to catch it with her ears, but her instincts said to dodge, so she pushed off the ground with her ears and soared into the air, as the ice spike pierced the ground and began to violently form new ice spikes, creating a frozen castle the size of a barn. From the castle's windows, thick streams of ice shards and powdery snow blasted out and curved upwards, ghostly pony-like wisps of pale-blue snow and ice along for the ride.

As Springer descended, she spun around and suddenly, with the Strength card's help, knew how to channel magic into her ears. Closing her eyes and following instructions she suddenly remembered, dark blue flames of aura ignited around the ends of her ears, with thinner, lighter flames travelling along the rest of her body. Her aura took on a yellowish hue as she formed a corona of lightning around her, disintegrating the Snowpony spirits and melting and evaporating the ice and snow effortlessly. The glowing golden dart approached mach speed as it flew towards Silver, who leapt into the air, and with a rapid flash of his horn, an unusually-shaped shield appeared around him, just for the moment of impact.

"Blip!" Was the sound the shield made, an audible flash of light and reflective magic.

And the shape of that shield... No matter where you stood and what angle you saw it from, you always saw a perfectly-flat two-dimensional six-pointed blue hexagon perfectly facing you, floating between you and Silver, just slightly larger than him, and that moment the impossible shield spent in reality was enough: Springer and the burning electricity around her was left screaming in fury as she flew at double her original speed in the opposite direction, travelling miles before she managed to turn the solid blaze of electrical doom around.

The thing turned like an airship, but finally, it soared at Silver once again, and he leapt into the air to repeat his trick. "Blip!", his magical Reflector spell went, and sent the golden arrow of growing gold rocketing away, its speed doubled once more. She seemed to be getting better at turning, because she redirected the lightning attack at him faster, only for him to bat it away with the same shield, doubled in size, speed, and power.

One last time, he Blipped her away, and when she came back for more, he was ready.

"THE WORLD!" Silver roared, punching the ground with his right forehoof, an orange field of energy blasting out around him to paint all around him in blazing orange hues, freezing everything. No wind blew, the leaves and grass stopped rustling, it was as if the whole world was frozen. Springer's lightning was absorbed, her momentum was stolen from her, she was left floating in the sky, unable to move, just like Silver.

Until the Diamond Dog somehow tripled in size, throwing off his mass calculations and becoming momentarily immune to his power-absorbing momentum-absorbing field, menacingly taking a step towards him and causing him to give up on the orange field, the world returning to normal.

Silver spawned six Spares, six copies of himself, arranged in the formation of six cheerleaders: Three on top, two above them, and one above them. Each began raining curses, hexes, transformative spells, down on the alluring Diamond Dog walking menacingly towards them all as her ears, engulfed in dark blue aura, batted away each spell and blast and beam, her aura reflecting the spells without even having to try. Some spells turned small patches of ground to chocolate, to mud, to crystal, or to nothingness, but she didn't care. Even when they all combined their beams and turned the ground beneath Springer into a pit of quicksand, blue aura flared into being around her paws, and she continued her equally menacing and alluring walk.

Springer swung her right ear and sent a wide gust of powerful aura-infused grey wind at the Silver and his spares, causing the copies to burst out of existence in flashes of blue light, and blowing the original high into the air.

"Silver!" Applejack called.

"Take the others down!" Silver shouted, and turned into a blue-eyed orange hawk, which shot off into the sky.

"The others?" Rock asked in surprise. "We're actually going to have to do stuff?"

"Over here!" Butcher shouted, extending long catlike claws from her paws to attack Applejack. Granny Smith threw her a broom, Applejack caught it in her mouth, and she blocked the claws.

Swipe after swipe, Butcher swung, and Applejack was kept on the defensive, spinning the broom handle around with her teeth and tongue to block strike after strike.

"It's over!" Butcher yelled, leaping into the air.

Applejack spat her broom out. "Yer darn tootin' it is!" She agreed, spinning around and bucking the Diamond Dog in the gut, sending her flying.

"Not bad!" Granny Smith congratulated, menacingly walking backwards like a tiger ready to pounce while the brutish Rock menacingly walked towards her.

Then Apple Bloom clocked him from behind with a full can of Silver Seal Liquid, and he went down.

"Come on, my little fox!" Springer announced to the world, no longer concerned with her allies. "Where are you?"

A steamroller descended from the skies and crushed Rock. And perched atop its roof, reared up on two legs and flexing his chest out as he bent back, Silver Star let out a victorious whinnying battle cry. "WRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYHIHIHIHIHIHIII!"

"Rock!" Springer shouted as her aura vanished, using her ears to leap into the air over to the downed Diamond Dog and strike the Unicorn's steamroller with a brutal blow, hard enough to send spiderwebs of cracks along every surface, every last piece of it fracturing and breaking apart. Silver leapt from the crumbling machine before it was too late, one last piece of machinery sticking to his right rear hoof.

"Exactly as planned!" Silver declared, casting a repair spell on the piece of steamroller he'd brought along with him. As if the part was suddenly pulled by a super-powerful magnet that grew stronger every second, it flew back toward the wreckage of his steamroller, dragging Silver along like a flag on a stick.

And then orange flames burned to life on his hooves and spread around his body, speeding him up as he shot at Springer. She caught him with her ears, a blazing rocket stopped by the two long ears of a beautiful Diamond Dog with her arms folded.

"There's something you should know," Silver said, his horn lighting up in a flash of blue magic.

"What?" She asked haughtily.

Applejack, Granny Smith, Apple Bloom, they all suddenly lost their grip on the ground and fell onto their chests.

"I just stole the farm's friction," He said with a grin, and Springer screamed as her feet started to rapidly slide along the ground until she crashed back-first into the reforming Steamroller hard enough for her to sink into it before it reformed fully, Silver leaping away from a road roller that now had Springer, her arms, her legs, and her ears trapped in the actual roller.

She smirked at him, "You think you can keep me down with this?"

"Oh," Silver quietly said to himself, admiring her. "If only you were a pony."

Applejack looked at Silver in disgust.

Springer flexed her elegant limbs and shattered the steamroller's roller apart, and Silver shielded himself and his family members. Once again, she walked towards him, elegantly and menacingly. And then she decided to throw that aside and run straight at him like a dog, her long ears taking the place of her forelimbs, which remained folded.

Silver formed six clones, and she swung her ears around like a long-haired mare at a metal concert, pouring her newly-discovered aura into her ears and weaving together a powerful cyclone that blasted painfully at everypony's furred skin, destroying the clones.

Furious, Silver realized he wouldn't be able to make any new clones. Curse their stupid one-hit-wonder weakness, the only downside to that amazing spell of his!

She pounced on Silver, who teleported behind her with a lance, which she kicked away. She spun around, wind attacking him in the process, which he dodged. And then, she rose up. Hundreds of strikes per second came from her ears, all aimed at Silver, each one dodged and evaded effortlessly. "Don't you get it, dear?" She asked, not even seeming to notice when he stopped dodging and started matching her rapid punches with his own forehooves. "You can't beat me. That special little card has made me the strongest warrior who ever lived. Kneel down for your new Princess, Pony!"

"Pony legs can't kneel..." Silver growled, grabbing her ear mid-thrust and pulling it violently. "FOR A REASON!" He roared directly into the inner side of her overly-long ears, stunning her for long enough for him to flip her over, grabbing her face and slamming it into the dirt. He grabbed her by the fur on her head and lifted her into the air, punching her face. A second later, a small blue bubble the size of a single bit coin was launched out of her head, and the body collapsed.

Silver glared at the body, and spoke with absolute finality. "And the hero lived happily ever after. The end."

"Woah," Applejack said in shock.

"Awesome!" Apple Bloom cheered.

"That's my g-" Granny Smith began to cheer, and then, she changed her mind. "Greatest rival, showing off again!" She declared unconvincingly, shaking a hoof. "Grr! Fancy shmancy rich folks! Farmers hate him!"

The dog's body suddenly twitched to life, wrapped her ears around Silver's neck, electrocuted him with blindingly powerful shocks of electricity that visibly arced along his body while forcing it to twitch like a shaken ragdoll, and she flipped through the air, her head touching the bubble in mid-air and absorbing it. She screamed for a few seconds, and noticed that she could scream once again. Furious, she spun him around in the air and when she landed, she slammed him head-first into the ground, leaving him there.

The ground came alive and sucked him and her down, leaving her with just her head above ground and allowing him to slowly and dramatically rise from the earth, dirtless, but sweating and gasping for breath anyway. "You think a few..." He stopped, and took in a slow breath. "Billion volts will stop me?" Silver roared furiously.

"You think some dirt will stop me?" Springer barked back. "...Also, that wasn't a billion-"

"There's a certain spell," He began to stage-whisper to her, ominously walking closer to her, eyes tired, angry, and reluctant. His body language screamed of exhaustion and fury. "And I think I... could use it. Right now. And nopony would think any less of me for it... Except me. Because while anypony else would believe whatever... I told them the spell was, I would know. I don't like that spell. I don't like how it feels to cast it. I don't like what casting it does to my horn, or my rugged good looks. I don't like that spell... But there's a reason why I learned it. So, please... don't make me destroy you. Don't make me use... That Spell."

She opened her mouth, and he interrupted. A sick sense of excitement started to dance across his face, and within his heart. "And, just, please, just think about it... After I used my mysterious superpowers to send your consciousness...outside of your own body... Even though I could have just shoved that card outside of your body and taken it for myself... I'm begging you not to make me do something even worse. Now, you might be asking yourself... What could be worse than that?"

He collapsed, right in front of her, his face less than an inch from her, and grabbed the sides of her cheeks with his forehooves, pushing her cheeks together a little. "You aren't ready to find out. But after the day I've had... I'm ready to show you. Are you ready to see it? Are you ready to FEEL it?"

Springer took the option he'd knowingly presented to her, and vanished into the dirt as she used her long ears to rapidly dig through the ground.

He groaned in exhausted relief, collapsing completely.

"What spell were you going to use on her?" Applejack asked curiously.

He closed his eyes and forced a grin. "I was bluffing!" He declared, and the camera angle changed. He looked at Apple Bloom and the audience at the same time. "Remember, foals! Honesty is for your friends, and only for your friends! If you can nonviolently de-escalate a situation by lying, nothing's stopping you but your pride!"

"What's going to happen to that thing?" Granny Smith asked, pointing at the ice castle he'd left behind earlier.

 _"Ela cbenedc uv dra vnuwah Rayndr... Canja drec ayndrah vemmo vencd, yht ran vysemo caluht. Tavaht dra vyns frah haatat, yht vimvemm yho naxiacd dra ayndrah Vemmo ycgc uv oui, ihmacc ed luhvmeldc fedr ouin luhdnyld du sa,"_ Silver spoke in an unfamiliar language at the small ice palace, and the ice melted and reformed in the shape of a doghouse. Icy ghosts in the shape of dogs emerged from its single door, and rushed over to Apple Bloom, sitting down in front of her. "Hey, filly. You can have this," He decided.

"What is it?" She asked,

"Ice Palace construct creator, good for about 250 more ice spirits. They'll do whatever you want, or destroy themselves trying. Just don't ask them to do anything stupid or evil, and you'll be fine." Silver said, and walked off. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to find Twilight and ask her about the card that just let a filthy little dirt-dog get far too close to defeating me."

Before anypony could say anything, he teleported away. Family could wait. He needed answers.

* * *

"Well, that happened." A figure covered by a white cloak with a long hood stated as he stared into the large crystal ball that showed him Silver Star's actions in shaky, blurred images, the best it could manage while ignoring its natural instinct to try and display every instance of Silver at once, fail, and explode in their faces. "I think he's going to stay there for a while. Or investigate these cards for us."

"Good." Gold Standard said, ignoring his workers and staring at a map of Equestria with three red pins and over thirty pins coloured differing shades of gold, each shade denoting a different number. "That's one loose end taken care of."

He sat on back on his haunches with a metallic clank, closed his eyes, and let his head roll back as his mind swam with visions of the future he'd achieve. "Soon... With the unquestionable power of these cards... I'll change Equestria's fate."


	5. 5 - Stacking The Deck

_Clop, clop, clop, clop..._

It was around that time in the afternoon when everypony was either outside for the next four hours, or ready to stay inside for the rest of the day.

 _Clop, clop, clop, clop..._

Twilight Sparkle was all alone.

 _Clop, clop, clop, clop..._

Which meant there was only one thing left for her to do.

 _Clop, clop, clop, clop..._

To magically carry a tray of food and some books with her as she walked briskly from her personal library to her bedroom, two locations that seemed to get further apart every day.

 _Clop, clop, clop, clop..._

She wasn't normally the type to think about the downsides of things, but she needed something to occupy her mind besides the loud, hollow, echoing clops of her hooves across solid crystal floors.

Why? Why did fate have to take her treehouse away from her? Right when she'd gotten used to using her newfound wings to fly from the books of her ground-floor public library to her own personal and private bedroom, fate had decided things were too simple, too nice, too perfect. So her perfect library-home, a place that reminded her of her observatory-home in Canterlot, had to be taken away from her and replaced with some stupid and gaudy crystal palace she thought she'd only ever see inside Rarity's head, if she ever faced one of those villains that trap you in your dreams forever, and that villain forced her to enter a dream where Rarity was having, a dream where Rarity was Princess Platinum and she lived in a castle of solid diamond with golden doorknobs and magical toilets and ten billion butlers.

Fate had decided that she had to go from living amongst the ponies of Ponyville and serving as their hero and occasional leader, to living high above those ponies in something that felt a thousand times more conspicuous than an ivory tower.

Was her status as the Princess's favourite and de facto town leader in times of crisis not enough? Was her incredible magical power not enough? Were the wings on her back not enough? No, fate had decided at some point, she needed to REALLY stand above everypony else, not just mentally, financially, and even physically, but by having the biggest and fanciest house.

This didn't feel like the house a hero would have. This felt like the house an out-of-touch Princess's Favourite would have, and she couldn't shake the feeling that every day, she lost a little more of herself and the pony she was and the pony she wanted to be, losing it all to The Alicorn the ponies of Equestria wanted to see.

She didn't want to mope. So she wouldn't think about this in front of others. But alone, as she had nothing else to occupy her thoughts, no immediate disasters or world-threatening problems on the horizon, she needed something to think about.

Perhaps, she decided, if she set up a system of perpetual portals that only she, Spike, and their new special little roommate could use, it would make the place easier to live in. After all, stepping through one portal and finding yourself in a new place, without having to bother casting the teleportation spell she'd copied from a Princess, was always nice.

Yes, she thought, that could help her change how much time she had to think about how much this new home just didn't suit her, but it just wouldn't solve any of the underlying problems that caused this sensation. It wouldn't solve the problem of how this house physically elevated her above everypony else in this otherwise charmingly old-fashioned-looking town. And perhaps, she never would. After all, it wasn't as if she could just demolish the whole crystal castle and put her old treehouse in its place.

She missed it. She missed feeling like she belonged in this town. She had grown up in Canterlot – She was born there, she was raised there, and she hadn't left until she was a teenager, on the orders of Princess Celestia herself. She wasn't sure how to put this into words, but she missed the way she used to find this town refreshing, bewildering, and a little bit exhausting.

She missed when ponies around the world treated her the same as any other pony in Equestria, while the ponies around town treated her with just enough respect, the kind you'd give to a good friend who'd stuck up for you once or twice. And it was real respect, not the fake admiration you had for some celebrity you only saw in bleached light, surrounded by spun stories and white lies.

She missed the days when a new adventure arose every day, be it a monster attacking Equestria, an apocalyptic disaster, or even just one of her friends getting into a fight with another one. She missed running around, she missed fighting monsters, she missed doing stuff, instead of feeling like a passenger in a story written about some other characters and their lives and their quests and how they were more relevant to the world than she'd likely ever feel again.

She missed when redeeming villains and befriending countries and building up Equestria's defenses felt like something exciting and a little terrifying, she missed when it felt like a sign that they would soon be needed for something incredible, rather than a sign that her life was changing, and not in a way she liked.

She missed feeling like the main character in the story of her life, and not some background character, some NPC straight out of Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons, who existed to be that one Alicorn in the background who gave quests to others.

She missed not having to bite down on her feelings and clamp down on her excitement every time it threatened to overwhelm her and send her into another "Gleefully springing around, repeatedly chanting 'Yes'" fit.

She missed feeling like she could call something good or bad or amazing or inefficient or even completely and utterly stupid without the less trustworthy reporters in the world jumping on it and trying to grab attention and stir controversy with headlines like "TWILIGHT SPARKLE HATES CORN!".

She missed her books, she missed her cozy little treehouse, but most of all, she missed...

She missed feeling like Twilight Sparkle.

She was grateful for the life she'd gotten to live, and she knew many ponies out there dreamed of being a pretty little princess in a massive glittery castle that sparkled beautifully in the morning sunlight, but that had never been her dream. Her dream was to become an amazing scientist, the head of a thousand different fields at the same time, getting her name in the history books so future fillies could read about her and see that smart ponies could be cool too. She wanted to use science and magic to make Equestria a better place than it was before she entered it. She also dreamed of having a school of her own, and she was pretty sure that some time in the future, perhaps when things settled down and all her friends had foals of their own and they were the ones dropping everything and flying across the world to solve some far-off problem at a moment's notice, she'd make a school of her own. A school that would take anypony, rich and poor, pony and nonpony alike, and give them all the best education her billions of patents could pay for, staffed by the best teachers and trainers and masters of the art in the world.

After all, she knew, it would simply be irresponsible to open up a school now, when she could be forced to call lessons off for a day or more at any moment. And as tempting as the thought seemed at times, she couldn't have her friends as the school's main teachers. As object lessons and speech-givers, perhaps, but she couldn't imagine Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, or many of the others would really make good teachers. Perhaps the reliable and dependable Applejack, with her education from Manehattan, and Rainbow Dash, with her mysterious memory abilities, could handle the job better than others, but Pinkie Pie... Hiring her to teach anything other than Music and Baking would be like hiring Starlight Glimmer as her student counsellor!

Starllight Glimmer... She wanted to say the mare had shown signs of wanting to redeem herself, but these days, it felt more like the mare had just... gotten used to being forgiven. She was content to forget all about the horrible things she'd done, and everypony else had just gotten used to that. To the point where now, she felt that if she brought the topic up, she'd just be re-opening old woulds. Perhaps, she thought, if she'd been less lenient on her, and if she'd made more of an effort to make the strangely apathetic and self-centered mare fully understand how awful her actions were, and why others might not be as willing to forgive and forget as her... Then again, perhaps she could never understand that, and perhaps she was just better off as somepony quietly resented by everypony. She didn't want to push the mare too hard and risk her attempting to destroy the timeline again. She didn't want her first real redemption project as a Princess to turn out badly, not after Fluttershy, of all ponies, redeemed Discord so quickly, efficiently, and easily. Making a beast who feeds off chaos emotionally dependent on a mare who dislikes it... Genius! There truly was a strange sense of poetic justice there. Still, she always good at taming and training wild animals.

Finally, she made it to her bedroom, and she sighed. This might not have been the life she wanted, but after all the nice things destiny had thrust upon her, it just seemed ungrateful for her to complain. To anypony, even to herself.

Besides, it wasn't as if things had really changed for her. She was still named Twilight Sparkle. She was still purple. She still had purple eyes, just like her mother-

She blinked. That wasn't right. Her mother had blue eyes, and her father had golden eyes.

She sighed, and chalked that brief moment of confusion of stress, while a stab of guilt struck her heart. That shard of raw guilt weighed her heart down for forgetting a main facial feature of her parents, even though it was only for a second.

Putting the food and books down for a moment, she spread her wings out, and she pounced through the air and onto her bed, shutting her eyes and burying her head deeply into her pillow.

It wasn't as if there was much of a difference in what she did for the world. She still saved it from sure destruction every few weeks. She still fought monsters, every now and then. And yet, despite her increased physical, magical, and political power, she found herself feeling more and more like she had less and less power over what mattered. She felt like a pawn. She felt like she was being used in some grand and repetitive variant chess game where some pieces evolved into stronger and gaudier-looking parts over time whether they liked it or not, and other pieces were left in the dust.

The newspapers of Equestria, she thought, could be divided into four categories: Those who loved her because of all the times she'd saved Equestria, those who wanted to curry favour with her, those who saw her as an overly-pampered rich brat in Celestia's pocket, but wanted to curry favour with Celestia, and those who saw her as an overly-pampered rich brat who needed to be taken down a peg. She wasn't too concerned about the spite the latter category put into spinning her actions, decisions, and words, and Celestia promised she'd take care of things if the papers went too far or went from negatively spinning her good deeds to outright lying about her, but she had to wonder... Who was next? How many ponies would come to resent her?

How could they not resent her? It was bad enough when she was the richest, magically-strongest, best-educated, and most insufferably more-special-than-thou pony in a tiny and traditional little farming town stationed over Equestria's only doorway to Tartarus. But now, she was everything she used to be and more. She had wings, she was called a Princess, and she had a big dumb Crystal castle she really, really wanted to hate. She wanted to hate it, and call it the physical representation of the path destiny had Spider-Marched her down, but something added even more sadness to her confused and conflicting emotions, and it was

She didn't feel like a regular Pony from Ponyville, or a Canterlot pony in Ponyville, she felt... Out of place. She felt really out of place, and she hated that. In fact, she felt more out of place than an incredibly rich pony coated in finery and jewelery and who knew what else, eating cake as starving orphans around her starved or ate grass. She felt like that one Period-Inappropriate and Setting-Inappropriate mega-princess character in a Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons gaming group, a character made by that new girl who just wanted to play pretend princess and didn't yet understand that the game could be, and should be, any deeper than that. She missed feeling like she belonged in this town, and not on some Public Service Announcement poster.

She flipped over, saying goodbye to the odd comfort of the pillow squishing against her face, and she teleported herself under her bedcovers, her pillow resting against her face.

Was she done? Was she done moping about her situation? What had she even done today? She didn't go out and smell the flowers and eat some nice Burgers. She didn't check on any of her friends, or hang out with them. No, she stayed inside like a good little nerd and read some Lore Craft books all day. Waiting to be called upon by Celestia or some horrible apocalyptic disaster that completely blindsided Celestia, without even realizing it.

What aspect of her life could she change? How could she solve the problems that haunted her during moments like these? She couldn't get into anything scientifically important, for fear that she might be pulled away at any moment. She couldn't say no to the next letter from Celestia that insisted she needed to fly over to the Griffons or Dragons or gaudy Good Changelings and smile at stupid behaviours she privately wished she could get away with, even though she'd never act in such a manner. She couldn't tell that stupid Yak prince that if he declared his stupid Yak species the best one more time, or if he threatened to attack Equestria one more time, she'd do to him what she did to Tirek. And finally, in her personal life... She didn't know what to do about her Crystal Castle. She didn't think anything could be done about her Crystal Castle. And now that she thought about it, she didn't think anything could be done about her life, either.

It wasn't even as if she'd really changed her daily routine. She still argued with her friends sometimes, she was still Celestia's first and only solution to pretty much any problem more complex than a cake shortage in the Castle pantry, and... Wow, she never thought she'd think something like that about the Princess. Then again, Princess Celestia did just want her to call her Celestia these days.

But... Despite all these physical changes, home-related changes, and other shallow surface-level changes, nothing about her life really felt like it had changed in a meaningful way. She still solved friendship problems, she still solved "Equestria's in danger!" problems... How could her life change so little, and yet change the way she felt about it so much?

Perhaps it was how she felt she had to set an example for the foals of the world, and for her unexpected apprentice. She certainly needed an example. She also, for some reason, needed to make herself an object lesson in what not to do every few weeks, when it came to learning lessons most foals learned before they reached six or seven years of age.

"Destiny just loves dropping random things in my lap, doesn't it?" She asked nopony in particular.

And then Silver suddenly crashed through her bedroom wall, crystal shards practically fleeing from him as he landed on her bed, his hooves pressing down upon the fabric that kept her bound and trapped. He was breathing heavily, a few faint beads of sweat had formed on his face, his eyes urgently locked with hers and she felt like he could see right into her soul. She didn't even have time to let out a slight squeak of shock before Silver spoke.

"Twilight..." His voice was a low, strong purr, his refined Canterlot accent no longer an announcement of class and refinement, but instead a subtle spice that accentuated every syllable, and her protests died in her throat. "I need you."

Twilight opened her mouth and tried to speak, but a thousand thoughts fought for dominance inside her head, their cries of war heard outside as only a faint, choked-up squeak from her throat.

He got off the bed, and with a grand sweep of his hoof, flung her duvet away, leaving her nude. In a manner one would expect from Fluttershy, or Rarity, or perhaps even Pinkie Pie, but never a Princess, she pulled her limbs up to cover herself, feeling impossibly naked under his all-seeing gaze.

Suddenly, sharply, with incredible swiftness and purpose, he moved closer to Twilight, their faces just inches from one another. "I need something from you," His voice rumbled alluringly.

"Anything," She breathed.

"Get the books," He said.

She blinked once, twice, three times, her mind and heart racing until she passed out.

"Well, fine!" He declared like a moody teenager, turning around and spawning twelve copies of himself into existence, all but two sprinting out of the room and down different crystal paths with their peculiar vulpine gait. "I didn't need your help anyway!" He declared to the world around him, and grumbled to himself, "Alicorns. Am I right, lads?"

The two who remained muttered in wordless agreement, the one to his right nodding. "Always face-down on the ground when things get hard."

The one to his left breathed in deeply and aggressively screamed in Twilight Sparkle's sleeping face, waking her up with a jolt. "I'm up!" She shouted in shock.

"Good, Equestria's in danger and I need your help," The original Silver explained. "Do you have any books on magical tarot cards?"

"They'd be in the reference section-" Twilight began, and Silver's horn lit up. Determination flared in his eyes as he cast a spell, horn blazing with a bright blue light. Four blue spectral apparitions, long and stretched like doughy teardrops, with all-yellow solid blobs in the shape of sad-looking eyes where their eyes should be, spun around him once in a protective manner. And then they took off, flying straight at her private library, flying straight through walls and floors as though they were mere illusions.

She blinked, peering closer at his horn. "Normally, when I look at spells, I can easily tell what magical energies you're using and in what quantities, and what mixture of spell words you're using, allowing me to replicate a spell perfectly, even if I only saw it performed once. But when I look at your magic, I... can't tell how it works."

"There's a simple and scientific explanation for that," Silver explained. "You know that thing where, in some trashy vampire novels, one girl will be immune to the vampire's hypnotic powers because she's special, or she'll have the best-smelling blood and she'll make the strongest vampire because she's special? Or that thing where, in action novels, the hero will be immune to magic because he's special?"

"Yes?" Twilight asked uncertainly. Well, she was certain that she'd read those things once or twice and hated the vampire-related things, but she wasn't certain where he was going with this.

"That's not happening here, I just wanted to know if you actually read that trash," Silver admitted with a cheeky grin, pronouncing it as reed, not red.

"I only read them out of academic curiousity," Twilight insisted, pronouncing it as red.

"To see what all the hype was about?"

"Yes,"

"And to see why so many other mares loved them?"

"Yes," Twilight answered. "So, why can't I read your magic?"

"Once I'd gotten to an acceptable level in all things, I trained hard in highly specific ways, while intentionally letting other aspects of my magical training fall by the wayside. After all, I've always been more the type to dodge an attack, redirect it, or power through it than to make a magical shield and hide from it. It worked for me, and I became one of the fastest spellcasters who ever lived. Offensive spells, defensive spells, utility and summoning spells... Even when I'm summoning the big bosses, my magic is pretty much instantaneous." He semi-lied, to make himself sound cooler. Well, he wasn't lying about his speed with magic, something that, he believed, made up for his comparatively lesser magical power a hundred times over. But that speed... While it made his spells harder to read, it wasn't what made his magic so unreadable. The truth was that every week, he would recast an illusion spell on himself that he'd been using non-stop for many years, an illusion spell that made his magic untraceable, undetectable, and unable to be copied or analysed, when he wanted it to be any combination of those things at once. After all, when you were an incredibly famous wizard and magical duellist, you didn't want your opponents to obtain the ability to steal your best spells just by purchasing a Moving Photograph copy of your most recent arena match.

"How can you make so many Mirror Images appear at once?" Twilight asked.

"I'll tell you once we're closer," He said suspiciously, "I don't know you well enough for that just yet."

"Hey, boss!" A Silver Spare shouted from downstairs. In a flash of blue light, he appeared between them, horn aglow, carrying a thick purple book twice the size of his head, unknown secrets hiding within its greying pages. He tossed the book to Twilight, her purple magic took the book, and he vanished.

Silver suddenly frowned for some reason Twilight didn't know of, but he dismissed the smile and walked to her side, peering over her shoulder like a cat as she read.

The camera looked up and saw darkness, darkness slowly illuminated by candlelight. Faint and old-sounding music started to play. Old-looking parchment filled the screen, and a single image could be seen: A floating purple card deck, wreathed in golden light.

"The Cards of Destiny are-" Twilight began.

"That's a terrible name," Silver interrupted, judging it visibly as the camera turned to him, and the music stopped.

She took a calming breath as she pointed her hoof to her chest, and exhaled while sticking that hoof forwards. And then, she gently put it down. "It has a suitably exotic name, in a dead language nopony knows how to pronounce any more. Translated directly, these cards are called the Cards of Destiny."

On a page of yellowed parchment, illuminated poorly by candlelight, a new simple image of pointy ponies and simply-drawn items appeared

"They were invented during the Warring Tribes Period, a long period of pony history before all three types of ponies put their differences aside to live together in almost-harmony and started the Three Tribes Era, which eventually led to the founding of Equestria." Twilight read aloud. "Twenty-One cards were created by the Purple Hermit, the magical advisor to an ancient and noble Unicorn king whose name was lost to history. Until a time-traveller went back and checked, and found out that his name was King Crystalord. Out of all the wildly-different future-telling devices Hermit Purple created in her time through trial and error, these cards were the most accurate, trustworthy, and reliable. She used these to aid and advise King Crystalord as he conquered tribe after tribe, and she was quickly invited into his castle to serve as the first official and formalized Court Magician. Victory after victory was achieved, and the Castle Armoury was filled with magical weapons and magical books stolen from defeated tribes. But when the fortuneteller warned King Crystalord that his next battle, against a small and seemingly helpless tribe known as the Longshots, would end in disaster, he laughed at her. He cast her out of his court, banned fortune-telling from the land, and attacked the tribe."

"What an idiot," Silver muttered. "Everypony knows your future becomes unchangeable if you look too far into the future, unless you cheat destiny by making that bad fortune come true in some harmless way."

Twilight kept reading. "The war began, despite the Purple Hermit's warnings, and she was sent into Crystalord's Castle Dungeons, along with ten of her friends. With their help, she escaped and brought her last deck of tarot cards into the Castle Armoury, magically Disenchanting every magical item she could find to gather the magical energy she needed to turn each of her twenty one Cards of Destiny into powerful magical items. With the last remnants of spare power, she converted the images on every card into darker, twisted images. With all twenty one cards, her power was nearly limitless... And she used that limitless power to teleport herself and her ten friends to the attacked Longshot tribe. She gave her final ten cards to different members of the tribe, granting each one an incredibly powerful ability. She kept one last card for herself, and nopony is sure what card it was, but experts theorize that it was The Tower, the Card of Destruction."

"When King Crystalord was defeated and about to be turned to stone, he performed a cursed spell. The darkness consumed him and the bearers of all twenty-one cards. The Purple Hermit performed a forbidden spell of her own, sacrificing herself so her cards could leave the Realm of Darkness and re-enter Equestria, seeking out those they deemed worthy."

"For the rest of ponykind's history, no matter how many treasure seekers searched for the cards, nopony could find them. To find a card, that card had to choose you. And no matter what, that card would stay inside you, granting you a new ability until your time was up. Nopony was ever able to collect more than one card each, according to the books, but it's possible that some treasure hunters found a few cards while claiming they hadn't found any, to prevent rivals from taking theirs."

Twilight frowned. "The book goes on to assume that because card sightings grew rarer over the course of pony history, and because they haven't been seen since Luna was sealed away, the cards were eventually lost or destroyed, or they ran out of magical power."

Silver walked away, deep in thought. "Those cards seek out the worthy, correct?" He asked.

Twilight opened her mouth to say something, and thousands of long orange blobs of spectral energy shot out of his horn like raindrops from a shower, each one bearing dark blue circles for eyes, each one phasing right through solid objects and flying out of her Crystal Castle. After four seconds of this, he spawned four Silver Spares, who vanished in flashes of blue magic. "Thank you, Twilight!" He shouted emotionally, and pounced at her, hugging her in a shockingly tight grip. "Thank you!"

She blinked in shock, blushing. "A-Any time!" She stammered.

He vanished in a flash of blue light, leaving her alone in her room.

She smiled, stopped, nervously looked around, reassured herself that she really was alone, and squeed harder. "I just got hugged by Silver Star!" She shouted gleefully, prancing around the room.

And outside her Crystal Castle, in an identical but lifeless hollow echo of this universe outside of Quarter Parallel Universe Alignment, Silver squeed where nopony could see him. "I just hugged Twilight Sparkle!" He shouted victoriously.


	6. 6 - The First and Final Sentence

"Silver, I've been meaning to ask..."

It was a cool and pleasant evening in Ponyville, and Twilight was still internally giddy over Silver showing up at her house for a second time that day, and inviting her to a mystery location. She was a thousand feet in the air... Literally! She was flying next to him, right now, only slightly pushing herself to keep pace with his Extreme Gear as they left Ponyville behind and flew to some last-minute reservation one of his restaurants had made for him just moments ago.

This wasn't a date, they were finding an appropriately secluded and secure location to discuss their plan for dealing with the whole 'Magical Cards' situation.

This wasn't a date, this wasn't a date... She repeated that to herself, again and again, but every few flaps of her wings, she had to stop herself from gleefully performing loop de loops.

He was so close to her. And with the wind ruffling his spiked mane, she had to admit, he looked quite cool.

She'd never really had much interest in seeking out stallions, as she'd always been too busy with studies, or saving the world, for the kind of committed life-long relationship she'd secretly always wanted. But now, the most intelligent, handsome, and eligible stallion in all of Equestria seemed to be interested in her. Her!

Sure, she was a princess now, so that might have been a contributor to his interest in her. Some small part of her feared that he wouldn't even give her a second glance if she wasn't an Alicorn, if she wasn't the Princess of Friendship, if she wasn't as big and important as him.

But then again, what if he didn't want her for her money, or her political pull? What if he wanted her... For her?

No, that was stupid. That had to be stupid. She liked to think she had a healthy level of self-respect, and she did, but at the same time, she didn't really consider herself beautiful. She was talented when it came to magic, but beautiful?

"We're here," Silver suddenly announced with pride.

"We are?" Twilight asked curiously.

"Yes, we're out of their range!" He declared, and a near-instant flash of blue light from his horn, but it was different from usual. She felt as if the unquestionable grip of space itself had protectively curled a clawed limb around them and prepared to yank them forward in a single instant, but it was over too fast. Her suddenly-different surroundings were all that told her the spell hadn't failed, and yet, her instincts and sixth magical sense her were both telling her she hadn't moved...

Incredible. It was as if she'd been moved thousands of miles in what felt like half an instant, or perhaps even less. And she didn't even feel it!

Looking around, she could tell one thing: She definitely wasn't in Ponyville any more.

Yellow brick roads lined the ivory-white street as bright red and gold Neighponese-style buildings here and there, and the scent of foreign spices filled the air. Two constant single-file strings of ponies on either side of the street ran on their two rear legs like ostritches, their forehooves stuck out straight behind them for balance. But these ponies weren't what she was used to seeing. These were ponies with unusually spiky manes and unusually pointy eyes, like the manestyles and eyes of Manga characters. Twilight was pretty sure she'd seen one pony of this subspecies before, back when she was a foal in Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, but to see so many of them in one place... It was shocking.

And every so often, in the two streams of ponies, a big, fluffy, black and white panda could be seen, rolling around with the strangely-running ponies like it was no big deal.

Twilight looked up, and high overhead, she saw a trail of illusionary cobalt crows with golden eyes and orange trails flying overhead, and she could instinctively tell: They were created by his spell, carrying their respective temporarily-stolen magical signatures far away from here.

Silver grabbed Twilight with his magic and pulled her away from the center of the road, out of the way of a black and golden Dragon-themed Extreme Gear hoverboard with an Eastern Dragon logo on the head, ridden by some kind of purple-maned blue-scaled half-Eastern Dragon half-pony hybrid.

"Why are we in Neighpon?" Twilight asked, recognizing where she was.

"I don't want anypony listening in to what we say to each other, while we discuss what to do about the Magical Cards," He explained, and he took her right forehoof into his own, shocking her. "Now let's get something to eat."

"I already ate today," Twilight admitted, blushing.

"You haven't eaten until you've eaten at Katsukami's." He said, leading her by the hoof into one Neighponese restaurant that looked pretty normal, really, aside from the chef. The place didn't have a front door, or a front wall. Instead, long and thin flaps of paper lined the top of the entrance the missing front wall made. The building itself was made with wooden frames, long and wide pieces of paper serving as walls. Eight sets of wooden tables, two benches with backs on each, were placed along a path straight to the door outside and to the kitchen, where one strange chef took orders, and presumably also delivered food to the customers, since Twilight didn't see any other workers here.

Only a few beings were eating in this place: A Tigress on her lonesome at one stall, eating some expertly-rolled Sushi with chopsticks, a family of two Eastern Dragons and a tiny Pony Pegasus colt who was probably adopted, each one eating from their own bowls of dumplings, and one Neighponese Pony slowly consuming what looked like a Sandwich Sub-sized Burrito, only filled with Neighponese stuff.

Who was the chef? Oh, just a floating green-eyed cherry-red mare who somehow had the upper body of a Unicorn, complete with two forehooves and a horn, but instead of a normal pony rear end, her equine upper body was mounted where the head should be on the green-scaled lower body of a snakelike Eastern Dragon, with four thin and tiny draconian limbs and a lizardlike tail, which ended in a kunai-like triangular barb.

Twilight tried not to stare at the curious creature, which was even more noticeable than somepony staring at her. The dragon-mare smiled like she was used to this treatment, but her eyes narrowed when she saw Silver.

"Silver," She spat.

"Katsukami!" Silver greeted cheerfully.

"Silver!" She roared.

"KAT-su-KAMI!" Silver shouted right back.

"Siiilveeer!" She screamed, throwing her yellow apron to the ground, hopping over her counter, and marching right at him until she loomed over him.

Despite the size of this beast, and the size advantage she had over him, he wasn't even a little intimidated. Instead, he smirked up at her, daring her to strike. "Katsukami."

Twilight forced a nervous smile. "...Twilight?" She guessed.

Katsukami's tail whipped out and stretched across the restaurant, striking a gong in the corner before whipping back.

Silver reared onto two legs and let out a roar of "ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAAA!" as he punched any limb of hers that tried to strike him, his hooves glowing orange as they absorbed the shock of every blow.

"MUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDA!" She cried, delivering a flurry of blows, kicks, slashes, tail whips, each one batted away or absorbed by his impregnable defense.

She stared into his eyes, he stared right back, his horn flashed, and it was over for her.

Her pupils dilated, and...

The world became a sharply-drawn masterwork painting of sharp lines and blocky black shadows.

Silver pounced on the dragon and bit her pony neck as she flew into the sky, ripping a hole in her restaurant's paper roof. In the air, the dragon and her new passenger spun and spun until he passed out, and she flew at the ground, ready to slam him into the dirt.

But in the point of impact, with a loud "Blip!", he awoke and cast a spell that formed a blue hexagonal shield around him, bouncing himself off the ground like a rubber ball thrown at it, only better, because he was travelling upward with double the force, dragging her along with him. It was easy for him to spin around in the air, wrap his forelegs around her draconian hips and his rear legs around her equine neck, and stretch one of her backs against the other. "Beast with two backs!" Silver announced the move's name as the two rocketed towards the earth.

They both hit the ground, but in the moment of impact, she dispersed outwards as flames as he vanished in a puff of smoke. What looked like the real Silver descended from the heavens, flexing atop a steamroller that landed upon the Dragon's flames, seemingly pinning them. But the flames broke free and converged above his head, landing on it and slamming his head into the top of the steamroller, but he was an illusion who burst into smoke, which meant his steamroller was, too. Katsukami fell through the steamroller and stuck her limbs out, the air screeching like the open road as she 'slammed the brakes' in the air and stopped.

And then Silver fell from the heavens, and right when he was about to land on her back...

"Blip!"

Silver knocked the Dragon into the ground, bouncing into the air with a fifth of his momentum angled directly upwards, having forced her to take the rest of it in its proper direction.

"Point!" The Tigress in one stall declared, and continued to eat her sushi.

Silver respectfully waited in the air until after Katsukami had gotten back up and rolled over, out of the way, and then he landed.

He scratched his right flank with his tail as he casually watched the Dragon-mare circle around him, walk ahead of him until she was ten steps in front of him, and lower her head.

"Ka... Me... Ha... Me..." The Dragon roared, charging magical energy around her body and into her equine forehooves, where it became a ball.

"Ha Ma Naaa... Ha Ma Naaa..." Silver stood on two hooves and mirrored the motions of her forelimbs, magically crafting a ball of energy with his horn and floating it over to rest between his hooves.

"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Both roared, shoving their hooves and balls at each other, each ball blasting a thick beam of magical energy at each other. The beams collided and clashed against each other, like swords.

They both struggled and grunted and screamed and made increasingly angry faces at each other, the violently-sparking point between the two beams travelling back and forth every few seconds like the knot in the middle of a rope that found itself used to play Tug of War.

And this kept going for an hour, until they were both out of energy. And then they transformed into bigger-haired glowier forms to get more energy.

"Eikō No Densetsu Saikyo Saikō Tora Taka Kame Ryu Hīrō Katana Sosen No Sora, Ten'nō No Tochi, Uchū No Kokoro!" Katsukami declared, summoning what was basically a regular-sized golden and katana, only scaled up equally in length and width. The handle was white, the blade was a pale blue-green, and a pale blue energy violently throbbed around its blade. A chunk was missing from the blade's edge, an inch from the tip, as if a heart-shaped cookie cutter had been stick into the sword to make that missing section so perfectly heart-shaped.

"I Summon: Supernova War!" Silver called, summoning a weapon of his own, a bright orange broadsword with two golden metal triangular spikes on one of the blade's ends, forming a cross, and a black magically-synthesized snakeskin handle on the other. On the handle's base, like a tri-coloured eraser on a pencil, there was a chunk of white diamond embedded in a yellow topaz, which was embedded in a red ruby. The weapon engulfed itself in a pale white corona of energy as the blade lit up with magical and bright crimson and golden flames.

The two charged at each other, and time seemed to slow to a crawl as the two rocketed past each other, each striking the other with their swords as they flew past each other and landed in dramatic poses.

"Omae wa mou shindeiru," The dragon-mare said solemnly. "Baka."

"I diagnose you with dead," Silver solemnly said. "And I'm afraid it's terminal."

They both exploded, their weapons vanishing with them, because they were both fake copies.

"Wait... What?" Twilight asked in confusion.

"Daga kotowaru!" The Dragon-mare declared, appearing behind Twilight with a mouth full of flames.

"Nothing personal, kid!" Silver announced, appearing behind the Dragon mare with his Spellblade out.

"Daga kotowaru!" The Dragon-Mare declared, appearing behind Silver with a mouth full of flames.

"Nothing personal, kid!" Silver announced, appearing behind the Dragon mare with his Spellblade out.

"Daga kotowaru!" The Dragon-Mare declared, appearing behind Silver with a mouth full of flames.

"Nothing personal, kid!" Silver announced, appearing behind the Dragon mare with his Spellblade out.

"Daga kotowaru!" The Dragon-Mare declared, appearing behind Silver with a mouth full of flames.

"Nothing personal, kid!" Silver announced, appearing behind the Dragon mare with his Spellblade out.

"Daga kotowaru!" The Dragon-Mare declared, appearing behind Silver with a mouth full of flames.

"Nothing personal, kid!" Silver announced, appearing behind the Dragon mare with his Spellblade out.

"Daga kotowaru!" The Dragon-Mare declared, appearing behind Silver with a mouth full of flames.

"Nothing personal, kid!" Silver announced, appearing behind the Dragon mare with his Spellblade out.

" Daga kotowar-"

Silver reared up, his mane's spikes gripping onto her face as he flipped over and slammed the back of her head into a table.

And then, something about the world changed, and became more real. "Ow." The Dragon-mare said, getting back up. "Match Point, I'm done!"

"Good game," Silver said, helping her back up, to the clear confusion of Twilight Sparkle, who'd just seen him stare into her eyes, diluting her pupils into she suddenly ran over to one table and smacked her head on it. "You almost had me with that first thing."

"I know. How did you know how to beat my Bōryoku-tekide shizukana sōshitsu no kage technique?"

"Elementary, my dear dragon abomination!" Silver declared confidently, to buy him time as he tried to remember what that was and what she probably imagined him doing to beat it. "I fought some poser a few years ago, he tried something similar. He kicked my butt with it the first time, because he had more magic than me, so he could teleport more. But the second time we fought, I jumped back and put his head through a brick wall."

She frowned. "What is, 'Poser'?", She asked.

"It means 'Faker'," He explained, and she smiled and nodded in understanding. "He was a loser who pretended to be cool. But he was terrible at pretending. So he looked very, very lame and uncool. By the way, where are my manners?"

"Crying in shame," She giggled, and he forced himself to convincingly laugh encouragingly, because she didn't joke in his language often.

Silver wrapped a hoof around Twilight's back, near the neck. "Katsukami, this is Twilight Sparkle, smartest mare in Equestria, Bearer of the Element of Magic, Alicorn Princess of Friendship, the real power behind Princess Celestia's throne, and current candidate for Equestria's Sorceror Supreme. Twilight, this is Katsukami, somepony who could kick both of our butts if she got serious."

Katsukami laughed.

"Is it cool if I tell her your tragic backstory?" Silver asked.

"It's very cool!" She grinned at them, conjuring some menus from green flames and passing them to the silver Unicorn and lavender Alicorn.

His eyes skimmed the menu, and he smiled. "I'll have two strawberry milkshakes, extra whipped cream and sprinkles, a plate of four brownies, with two scoops of Rocky Road Ice Cream on top, one fifteen-inch Totally-Not-A-Burritos full of fried chicken and Totally-Not-Pasta Sauce, and... One of whatever she's having."

Twilight laughed, expecting him to be joking.

"I'm not joking," Silver admitted cheerily, used to that reaction. "You don't become a powerful archmage on a diet of rice and grass!"

"Maybe a diet would do you some good!" The Dragon-mare chuckled.

"Hey, my second form burns up a lot of calories," He said defensively. "At least I'm not one of those Earth Mages who run around covered in dirt and mud they try to use as ammo in duels."

Twilight ignored that and read the menu, and she was glad she read that book on translating Moon Runes into Equestrian that one time, many years ago, when she was a bored but studious little filly. "I'll have... a Medium bowl of Jiku Shippu Senko Rennodan Zeroshiki Odango, and a Medium Ageta ika no agemono."

"Try their Totally-Not-Burritos, too," Silver encouraged, "They're great, and you're hungrier than you're letting on."

Her stomach growled. "How did you-"

"Coming right up!" The Dragon-mare cheerily announced, whooshing off into the air and through the ground, phasing right through it like a ghost. Though muffled by the dirt layer between the surface world and what must have been some kind of basement, they heard the sounds of slamming, mechanical whirring, fires burning, metal striking metal, a cat's pained meow, and suddenly, she was back, plates of everything they ordered upon one extra-wide plate held by her tail.

"Great," He said, taking the plates with his magic. "We'd like to visit the Private Booth."

She breathed a stream of green fire at them, teleporting them away.

Deep underground, beneath miles of dirt and privacy enchantments, the two ponies and their food appeared in a magically-cooled room fit for an eastern ruler of some kind. Fancy red and gold stuff Silver couldn't pay attention to was all over the place, but he didn't care, he sat on some nice golden bench with plush red seats and set his food down on the masterwork glass table before him and started to lick up the whipped cream and sprinkles atop his strawberry milkshakes. Twilight took her own eat on a similar bench, and started to eat her own Totally-Not-A-Burrito.

Smiling at his food with hungry eyes, his horn lit up as he broke the brownies down into a gooey crumby mess that flew into one glass, his ice cream turning into a semi-solid mass as it, like the brownie powder, drilled through the layers of cream and infused itself into his milkshakes. Proud of this, his magic held both drinks aloft, and he grinned. "To magic!" He toasted. "And to friendship!"

Curious, and eager not to seem impolite, she copied him. "To magic and friendship!" Twilight toasted enthusiastically.

They ate in silence for a while, and Twilight was shocked at how good this Totally-Not-A-Burrito was.

"Let's get to know each other, before we talk about plans and backup plans. I'm sure we have a lot of questions for each other, so let's take turns," Silver decided after about a minute of eating. "You ask one, and then I'll ask one, and then you, and then me, and so on. And if one of us asks multiple questions in a row, that's fine, we'll count them and make up for them later. So, first question, what is your favourite colour?"

"Purple. What's yours?"

"Blue," He answered, "Are you single?"

Twilight blinked in shock, and when he mirrored her expression, it was genuine. "Um..." She said uncertainly.

"WHAT WAS THAT?!" One Silver inside his head screamed, getting up from his desk in the office building inside his head, screaming at the Silver in the cubicle next to him as the heads of other Silvers around the room met their desks. "WHAT IN EQUESTRIA WAS THAT?"

"SHE'S SO BEAUTIFUL AND I WANT HER TO LOVE ME!" That Silver screamed back with teary eyes.

Silver punched a hole in the cubicle's wall and walked through it, grabbing that Silver's documents with his magic and waving them in that Silver's face. "DO YOU SEE THE DOCUMENTS HERE ON HOW TO TALK TO MARES?"

"YES, BUT WE DON'T HAVE ONE FOR ALICORNS!"

"JUST GO WITH A MIX OF 'RICH MARE' AND 'SMART MARE', MOSTLY SMART MARE, DUH!"

"Yes," Twilight admitted in reality. "I do like Stallions, I swear. I just... don't have a lot of time to date, between saving the world, studying, and dealing with monster attacks."

"Despite my reputation, it's the same for me," He admitted. "But I have the added pressure of never being able to tell when any mares are truly interested in me, or my money. Sure, ponies are naturally genuine creatures, so even the worst ponies in pony society are rarely THAT bad, compared to some absolute ANIMALS I've seen in other worlds, but... 'Canterlot, City of Fakes'... That should be on a postcard. Has anypony ever tried to date you to get to your money?"

"No."

"Oh, thank goodness!" Silver sighed in relief.

"Excuse me?" Twilight asked.

"I mean, that is to say..." Silver stalled, and thought of something. "I'm glad fate decided not to put you through that ordeal. I know how hard it can be. ...Wait, I just asked a question. Okay, your turn again."

"Why did you cast an illusion spell on that Dragon Mare?"

"Because as much as I love fighting and rebuilding towns after big fights, I would rather not get into a six-hour spar with somepony that dangerous. For the sake of everpony here, of course. Her control over her legendary power is not exactly... Well, legendary."

"That makes sense. Why do you like visiting and exploring parallel universes so often?" Twilight asked.

"The concept has always fascinated me," Silver admitted. "Sure, there's some terrifying existential horror in the idea of finding a world where you never existed, or mattered, because the world ended up turning out just fine without you, perhaps even better, but there's also something about knowing that there are infinite yous and infinite mes and infinite everyponys out there, living their own interesting lives, that's just so... Beautiful."

"Dove Robin said the existence of an infinite multiverse would make the life in each one matter less and less for each universe in which copies of that life existed."

"Dove Robin was a loser," Silver said, and Twilight gasped. "In every world where you never existed, because your parents never met, or their grandparents never met, or their great grandparents married the wrong ponies, there are opportunities to introduce yourself to your new friends. In every world where the beating of a butterfly's wings in one country created Civilization-ending tornadoes everywhere else, there are opportunities to sell things to the survivors as you help them rebuild. And in every world where tyrants rule and made their evil law, there are foes to face. The darkest timelines are there so that you can bring light to them! That's what I think, and my poetry book on the multiverse and reality and the meaning of life sold more copies than his, so I'm pretty sure I'm right. Would you like to know which parallel world is my favourite?"

"Which is it?"

"This one. There is no Prime Timeline, no central lychpin universe all other universes have split away from. The central point for multiverses is the first one's beginning of existence, but nothing that happens in that one will damage any other timeline. No individual Parallel World, or Alternate World, is more or less real than any other. Except for Parallel Universes out of Q-P-U Alignment are fake universes, those things are just fake echoes of real ones."

"I read the book you wrote on this," Twilight admitted, "But could you explain the differences between the three and the concept of QPUs to me again, anyway?"

She wanted to hear this in his own voice? Surely, that had to be a good sign. "Any time. You see, Parallel Worlds are worlds in Parallel Universes, universes where the choices we, our parents, or our ancestors made turned out differently. Or universes where we, our parents, or our ancestors made different choices. It depends on the universe, really. An Alternate Timeline is something similar. It branches from our world, in the form of an additional Parallel World created artificially through the use of time travel. They continue to exist, even when the damage to the main timeline is corrected, but they can be 'Pruned' and collapsed back into the main timeline if a time traveller desires, and is willing to fix everything that went wrong in that timeline until a world indistinguishable from our own is created, and one can safely and quietly merge into the other. Of course, if the ponies in said fixed timeline are too different from ours for any merge to happen, their timeline will persist. An Alternate World is something else entirely, a world that could have everything but one thing, or even nothing at all, in common with our own, without having to be a result of any particular point of divergence. Rather than a branching path on the tree of history, an Alternate World is an entirely different tree in the forest of the Multiverse. If you're on a planet where Rabbits evolved to develop wings to flee from terrestrial predators, you're in a Parallel World. If you're on a planet where Rabbits evolved wings for no apparent reason, or even in spite of good reasons to not evolve wings, you're in an Alternate World. As for QPUs, imagine that the multiverse is set up in a grid-like pattern that extends infinitely in all direction, a sphere for each universe, each in perfect alignment with the spheres in front of it, behind it, beside it, above it, and below it. Every four Parallel Universes in any given direction, you get another True Parallel Universe. The universes between them are blends of the two universes, proximity determining how much of one universe bleeds into the other, and if you teleport yourself into the space between two Parallel Universes, you'll end up in a pseudo-existent plane, a mere echo of a true universe. While some Universally-Misaligned spots, as they're called, are stranger than others, due to the presence of reality-warping and extradimensional beings that like to roost in these places and make their homes there, most Universally-Misaligned spots are simply worlds that are like mostly-invisible replicas of the nearest Parallel Universe."

"The multiverse really is amazing," Twilight sighed.

 _"DON'T SAY 'SO ARE YOU'!" Silver shouted at another Silver inside his own head._

"I know." Silver said with a self-satisfied, slightly-punchable smile.

 _"THAT'S EVEN WORSE!" Silver screamed inside his own head. "YOU'RE BLOWING THIS!"_

"I've noticed that sometimes, you have duplicates of yourself running around, aiding you, or fighting for you, or talking to others for you. How is this possible?" Twilight asked in reality.

"Well... You're familiar with that spell, Mirror Image," Silver said, and it wasn't a question, it was a statement.

She nodded. "Arcane spell, Level 3. Creates three simulacrums, three magically-constructed replicas of yourself, with your memories and just enough basic artificial intelligence to determine friend from foe as they repeatedly cast one spell for the brief period - typically around ten seconds - they spend existing."

"At a young age, I modified the spell to my own ends."

"Really? How young were you?" She asked, and took a sip of her Squid Juice.

"I think I was... Eight."

She choked on her own drink, and without asking for permission, he cast a spell that allowed her to breathe through her skin for around thirty seconds, letting her breathe in through her skin as she coughed and spluttered air from her lungs and through her throat. After a few seconds, she had recovered, and she cancelled the spell herself. Which surprised him, as she'd used a dedicated Counterspell, rather than a general spell-countering or body-resetting spell. Either she'd bothered to learn the Skinbreather spell's counterspell, or she was just that good at making counterspells on the spot.

"Metamagic has always been easy for me," He explained as she regained her standard breathing rate, ignoring that outburst. "I might not have any great dedication towards any particular field of spell, or any natural talent for one over the others, but my mastery over the fundamentals granted me a great deal of flexibility in what I learn and when. More flexibility than you'd expect for somepony with the magical reserves and sheer brute force I can throw around. Not as much as you, I'm sure, but while I prefer to use a handful of small, simple, easily-cast and useful spells in creative ways, I've developed quite the arsenal over the years."

He folded his forehooves behind his head and leaned back, using them as a pillow as his magic brought his milkshakes to his mouth. He took a smirking sip, and resumed bragging. "Sure, I might not throw fireballs as quickly as a fire mage, I might not throw icicles as hard as an ice mage, and I might not be able to move as much air or earth as an air or earth mage, but I have yet to meet one that can even approach the number of powerful spells I've memorized and mastered in my lifetimes, or what I can turn those spells into with the power of Metamagic. Fire mages don't do well when heat-magnetized dirt rains from the skies, ice mages don't like it when I summon Salt Golems in the form of falcons or wolves, and the remaining air and earth mages can't do much against summoned spirits who seek to possess them, and have the ability to phase right through any offense or defense they might mount. In addition, air mages cannot avoid or evade magical alterations to their form, and earth mages... Well, I own a construction company. It's just me, and the many spells I have for reshaping, destroying, and creating land."

"Lifetime- _'s'_?" Twilight asked.

"That's at least two questions in my favour, but you can owe me. It's a long story, so get comfortable," He said, and she shifted a little in her seat. "My spell creates duplicates of myself. Thanks to how hard I min-maxed this spell, they don't disperse until something makes them disperse. I started with a modified Mirror Image spell and worked from there, disassembling the three-copy programming and rewriting it in another, more modern language. I can create all the copies I want, though the more copies I create, the more magic costs. And creating three copies with this spell costs more magic than it would take to cast the original Mirror Image spell. Of course, with increased magic comes increased perks. Intelligence, for one. Genuine intelligence, if I pour in the proper amount of magic needed to create one, and a simple artificial framework of orders and conditions if I put in half the magic. I call the copies created by this spell... Silver Spares."

"That's incredible!" Twilight declared.

"Indeed, and that's not all! I added some Limitations, so the Replicas cannot harm me or act against me, basic stuff. This slightly increased the spell's potency, which I redistributed into efficiency. There's an Immunity spell in there, to protect my clones from spells with the 'Grow Power' effect. If a foe used some kind of spell that became magically better at harming a certain species with every member of that species it harmed, destroying a few of my Silver Spares would not cause that spell to become stronger. Finally, a simple Return charm, linked with Magic and Thought, programmed with a Good Exclusivity Limitation, and programmed to trigger only when the Spares are vanquished. A considerable Minmax boost, there, as my Spares are only considered 'Destroyed' in the final moment of their lives. This helped reduce the spell's cost to a less prohibitive level. When my Silver Spares are defeated, the magic I used to create them, and the memories they gained in their lives, return to me. And due to how hard I min-maxed them and their primary statistics, they get defeated quite easily. Each Spare has an exact copy of my current mental and magical attributes, all of my physical attributes, and a remaining amount of energy and magic that matches my own before each instance of the spell is cast. However, each Spare is less durable than a wet paper bag."

Her eyes widened. "Does that mean you could form ten copies of yourself, and-"

"That's at least three questions, but I could form fifty copies, and each copy would be as formidable a foe as I was the second before they were born. Defending me as I recover my stamina, perhaps several miles away from the battlefield after I'm teleported away by one of them and replaced with another Spare, would be an easy task for them. If I then made ten more copies of myself with this spell, they would have the remaining magic I had just before I created them; less than the magic I had when I created their predecessors. Though this spell hardly makes a dent in my now-prodigious magical reserves, which is bolstered by the magical batteries in my horseshoes. In addition, skimping on the magic when it came to their toughness made this spell a very easy one to cast and Overcharge. A.O.E. Hard Counters them, in the sense that Area Of Effect spells are harder to dodge, which means those Spares will have to expend actual effort in forming magical shields, teleporting out of range, Reflecting offensive spells and curses, or dodging rain if they feel like it."

Twilight tried to imagine what an army of Silver Stars could do... and she forced herself to stop a second later. This pony's wildly-varied skillset made just one instance of him hard to predict, and she didn't even know the full extent of his abilities. For all she knew, he could have a thousand other secrets just like this one, a thousand other tricks up his black-suited sleeves.

"As I only gain the positive magic and memories from my clones, any attempt to corrupt the magical energies that might make up a spare won't harm me, and I won't be harmed by any mental attacks on my spares, either. In addition, as I gain all information my Silver Spares learn once they are 'Popped', so to speak, I am able to read many books at once, and gather all the information from them in an instant."

Her eyes widened in shock. Sure, she knew a spell that allowed her to instantly learn all knowledge within a book, and she only read for the pleasure of reading traditionally, but the idea was still impressive to her.

And then a thought hit her like a steam train. "Can you make a hundred copies of yourself and ask them to spend an hour trying to master a powerful spell, letting you pour a hundred hours of practice into that spell in one hour?"

"I wish!" He chuckled. "If I make five of myself and we all read the same book, I get the same information and experiences six times over when we're done. But if I have each copy reading a different chapter of the same book, I can piece the chapters together and mentally arrange them in the right order when they pop. I don't get the experience of noticing call-backs and foreshadowing, but it's good for use on nonfiction books. Having them learn magic for me carries the same problem. If we all try to learn... Let's say a fireball spell. A big one. If one of my clones is going to overcharge the spell and pop himself, that means my other copies would be destined to do the same if something didn't happen to change their minds or stall them long enough to see one of their brothers pop himself. And when the information came back to me, I'd get 'Do not mess the spell up in this particular way or you will die', rather than any sort of instant mastery of the spell. I'd have to keep replacing any copies that damaged themselves, but each copy would be made with all the knowledge of the old ones. Each replacement copy would also have the lower energy levels I had when I made the replacements, and this starts to wear down my copy quality after the first fifty replacement batches. And where a normal mage might burn his horn or his hoof a little and walk it off, my copies can be popped by even the slightest bit of damage. So while I can have different copies assigned to learning different things, letting me learn five or five hundred spells at once, it wouldn't be instantaneous. It would be a slow and time-consuming process for each copy, who'd grant me his knowledge when his job was done or he needed replacing. Though I'll admit, this spell has a great benefit: I can try risky things or experimental and fail without the risk of real harm to myself. I can learn what not to do, and why, without ever having to worry about permanent injury or a loss of materials. And I would only 'Instantly' learn whatever my copies learned when they popped. So while I still learn at a normal rate, I would need to have my copies approach the same problem from different angles and with different goals and methodologies if I wanted them all to efficiently focus on learning one thing."

Learning that he couldn't just fill some forest clearing with copies of himself and rapidly work on mastering all the magic, ever, was a bit disheartening to hear. Still... "Even with those downsides, that still has to be the best spell anypony has ever made!"

Eyes downcast, he spoke lowly. "Usually, but not always. Have you ever experienced your own final moments, and your own death, a hundred times over in a single second? It isn't fun."

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"Just kidding!" He said with what had to have been a forced grin, with how bright and cheery it was. "It doesn't matter how my copies die, the second they get even slightly hurt, they pop open in a flash of blue magic, and return to me. I can even have them bite their own tongues to pop faster, if something that won't pop them on impact is coming towards them. And even then, thanks to the Good modifier, I don't get any bad memories from my copies, only good ones. And any attempts to infect a clone with Dark Magic or any kind of magical virus will always end in failure."

"That seems like an oddly specific defense mechanism," Twilight admitted.

"It pays to be prepared," Silver confidently quoted his own biography. "Now, you're definitely beyond three questions, so you've got three more before I start asking mine in a row to even the score."

"How do those enchantments on your horseshoes work?"

"Through the power of simple storage runes and incredibly hard magical gems, they store energy, and can convert it from one type of energy to another. Kinetic, magical, even elemental or any given type of spiritual. They can also leave marks on objects, marks only I can see. When I choose, the stored energy in these marks detonate in whatever manner I see fit. If I wanted to, I could form hammers made from kinetic energy within an Anti-Magic Shell and swing them at whatever was creating said shell."

"What's that Dragon-Mare's backstory?"

"You know those cults that try and summon stuff? Sometimes, they successfully summon monsters. But not all monster-summoning cults want destruction and mayhem for the world. Sometimes, the monsters and their summoners fall in love, and use magic to have freaky mutant hybrid foals. That dragon mare thing was supposed to destroy the world, but I showed her the world was beautiful and something to protect with this big super-emotional journey through the world - it could make a statue cry, let me tell you - and I set her up with this restaurant, so she'd have a place to stay and something to do with her life when not fighting, training, or reading."

"Why do you gallop differently from everypony else?" Twilight asked.

"It's scientifically the most optimal and efficient way for a pony like myself to run," Silver explained, clearly believing that.

Twilight didn't buy that for a second, but she let it slide. "I heard there was a certain test all Unicorns have to pass when they apply to enter the Royal Canterlot Academy of Magical Duelling. How did you do that?"

"I did something very, very clever," Silver said, "But I'm not sure the time is right for me to say what."

"Why's that?"

"They still use that test," He explained, "And I'm really not supposed to tell ponies how I did the impossible there."

"That sounds fair. Even so..."

He smiled ruefully. "You've always had a theory on how I passed a test designed to be impossible, and you wanted me to confirm or deny it, right?"

"Yes," She admitted.

"Go ahead," He said. "Guess, and I'll count this as question number six."

"Nopony had tampered with the tests," She recited from memory, "As magical experts, including the creator of the test, confirmed. You didn't magically modify the test in any way. You also didn't have any sort of blackmail material on the examiners, or the magical experts who examined the examiners, or the magical experts or police who investigated those experts, or Princess Celestia when she checked for herself, just to be certain... and all of those ponies testified under a truth potion that they didn't know you, accept a bribe from you, or bend or break the rules for you. Nopony found any magical effects that altered or enhanced you, either. Not even one of those magical time loop spells that magically gifted ponies often use to eventually get a perfect score on tests through trial and error. You were quite talented with potions at the time, but no potions were found in your system. And the test is impossible, by definition, so... You magically altered the memories of your current judges and everypony in the room to make them think you completed that test by being impossibly lucky and impossibly good at whatever that test tested you on. And if your trick was discovered, they were so impressed that they offered to give you the world's first passing grade if you promised to never tell another soul."

His eyes widened. "Out of all the theories I've heard, that one's definitely the smartest." He said, and she grinned, making that cute little squeaky-toy noise only a pony could make. "But no," He said, and, surprised, she made that noise in reverse as her smile vanished. "They remembered to check for that, as well, and they found nothing. I really did take that test, and succeed. I didn't perform any trickery outside of the test, or inside it. I was just... myself."

And darkly, he added, "In more ways than one."

"Come again?" She asked, not sure what that last part meant.

"If I ever explain how the test went for me, and what it was, you'll realize how clever what I just said was. But until then," He said casually, and sipped his drink.

"Great," She said graciously, but internally, she felt like saying it sarcastically. Her one theory had been shot down, her only chance to guess at the truth was gone, and she doubted he'd ever tell her the answer to that mystery, one that had kept many ponies, especially former Duel Academy and Celestia's School students, awake at night. "What would you like to ask me?"

"How did your first day in Ponyville go?" Silver asked.

* * *

Meanwhile, in Ponyville...

"Pinkie, I'm preparing a nice surprise for Twilight somewhere else, how quickly can you throw an emergency party in Applejack's barn, the one we partied in not long ago, and get one of everypony in town except Twilight to show up for it?" Silver had asked Pinkie after entering Sugarcube Corner, and then she... Did something.

Something strange.

It was as if they were characters on a stage, viewed from the side, and she grabbed the board behind them that made up their background and flung it to the side, revealing that they were in Applejack's Barn all along, and so was everypony else in town, each pony in various levels of confusion at their displacement.

"How did you just..." Silver whispered, blinking a few times, trying to make sense of this.

"Party!" Pinkie yelled, stretching her forelimbs to pull a Party Cannon from somewhere outside of his field of vision, blasting it into the air and filling the room with party decorations, streamers, balloons, all that good stuff. It even, somehow, caused cheerful music to start playing, and everypony started dancing because they were used to this from her.

Silver didn't think he could ever get used to this... Anomaly. Not until he understood how she worked.

He'd heard stories of beings like this, and they always had some kind of rules to how they worked. Something you could use to make sense of the seemingly nonsensical.

He decided to think of this like it was some kind of rules-based magical effect she gained from a spell somepony cast upon her, to make sense of it. She had to pull the Party Cannon from somewhere outside of his field of vision, she couldn't just clap her hooves and make it appear in a puff of smoke and multicoloured confetti. She had to take it from a location that theoretically could exist. But at the same time, she just... She warped space, like it was nothing. She put every pony in this town in one location, like it was no big deal. And he didn't see an army of Silver Spares surrounding him, so either she knew about his multi-Silver spell, or she only wanted one of every pony in this place, and she could bring every instance of him into one location if she wanted.

How... how did that make sense?

She couldn't conjure one simple object in front of him, but she could alter the locations of over fifty different ponies in a single instant, herself included?

What rule, what rule could possibly make such a thing possible?

'Ah, forget it', he decided. His original self was getting to know Twilight elsewhere, his other selves were preparing a nice surprise for Twilight, and he could stand to loosen up a bit and have a nice time.

He shrugged, and decided to start breakdancing, heading to the dance floor and swinging his limbs around on one hoof at a time.

* * *

"Summon: Spike The Dragon," Silver stated clearly outside of Twilight's home, his horn glowing with a bright blue light. When Spike appeared in a flash of blue light, holding a spoon full of tiny gem shards and milk, the bowl he was eating from missing, he gasped and dropped the spoon.

Without giving the Dragon a chance to say anything, Silver spoke. "Hey, buddy! Let's hit the best arcade in Equestria!"

He disappeared in a flash of blue magic, taking the small dragon with him.

And just like that, Twilight's castle was empty.

That Silver Spare formed fourty copies of himself, and they stood perfectly still.

Watching the castle. Waiting. Thinking.

"Got it," One Silver Spare was the first to say, and the rest cast a spell that caused blue lasers of their own magical power to shoot from themselves into that Silver Spare, invigorating and empowering him.

His horn aglow with a mighty blue glow that stretched into the sky, twice the size of his horn, he crafted ten Silver Spares, each with the same magnificently-glowing horns, and with the momentum stored in their hooves, they moved like roller-skaters. Incredibly fast kleptomaniacal roller-skaters hopped up on caffeine, who rocketed into the house, some sliding along the ground and some skating up walls, each one teleporting everything they saw into a dedicated corner of their Pocket Dimension.

They plundered her house, taking everything that wasn't nailed down, like the plumbing. And then they took the nails, and then they took everything that used to be nailed down, but were no longer nailed down. Like a swarm of magically-powerful magpies hopped up on a lifetime's worth of sugar, they pocketed books, fridges, food, tables, chairs, the crystal kitchen sink, a leftover shard of the old tree library Twilight said she used to live in, a magical fridge that magically created its own food using the power of the castle, and more.

And Silver had a great time doing it, because before destruction, comes theft.

* * *

Silver's eyes locked on to the pinkish mare with a purple mane with pale greenish highlights and a Cutie Mark of a falling star. He recognized her. He doubted there was a pony alive who wouldn't.

Silver began to rush forwards and his horn lit up as he leapt, and he teleported. He reappeared in the air just behind Starlight, his forehooves grabbing the back of her head and pulling it down as his horn's magic destabilized her front legs by pushing them apart, slamming her face into the crystal ground as he landed beside her. He turned and glared at the screaming mare while his horn blazed with blue magic, a flick of his horn's power tossing the mare up and flipping her over twice in the air before letting her fall on her back, the angle and point of rotation calculated to rotate her head and inner ear as much as possible for the effort the move expended. First, a modern Pegasus's takedown aided by magic, the kind Gold Standard's troops practiced, and then a more traditional Unicorn guard's magical takedown executed admirably, though the force was somewhat excessive. With her dizzied, and certainly not able to cast any spells, he put a hoof on her throat and pressed down threateningly. "Stay down or get put down," He growled.

The ponies around the room gasped, and somepony stopped the music player with a sudden record needle scratch. "Hey, Rainbow Dash! Why is this collectivist law-breaking brainwashing CULTIST here, EATING CAKE with us?" Silver loudly asked Rainbow as he continued to glare down at the cultist Unicorn, his horn's glow as steady and dangerous as the merciless look in his eyes.

Rainbow Dash charged through the air and flew into him, hoping to tackle him and get him off her, only to crash into him like he was made of pure titanium, falling to the ground. "Wait, she's reformed!" Rainbow Dash explained.

"She's ref- She's a reformed cultist? A reformed dictator? A reformed _monster_?" Silver asked incredulously.

"Yes." Starlight whispered.

"Ssshhh..." Silver shushed softly, pressing just a little harder on her throat for a moment. "Don't speak. Not yet."

And then, he turned to Rainbow Dash. "Mind if I check if you're brainwashed?", Silver asked.

"Go ahead," Rainbow Dash said through grit teeth, uncomfortable with the idea of a pony going through her head.

His horn lit up, and he stared into her eyes as a long and thin orange ghost emerged from his horn and jumped into her head to look around. It didn't hurt, it didn't feel weird, and the ghost actually felt a little too slow and considerate as it looked around her head. That made it even weirder for her.

Meanwhile, his spell was just one of many ways he could read her. Light blue numbers and lines appeared in his sight and he saw her heart rate, the size of her pupils, her pulse, her brain activity, and if she even twitched a little, anywhere on the body, a subconscious muscle contraction that would tell him she would be about to move or lie, he would know. "I don't see any magical brainwashing or mind-control spells, so far," Silver said, "But magic can't detect the old-fashioned methods. I heard you and your friends were in her brainwashing room for a long time. Do you want to protect her?"

"I'm fine." Rainbow Dash grumbled.

'Yes, yes, yes, yes,' His analysis of her face and microexpressions told him in an imagined echoing variant of her voice.

"Do you remember what she told you in her brainwashing room?" Silver asked in a calm and mildly curious 'Therapist' tone of voice.

'Yes, yes, yes, yes,'

"Yeah, but I'm not just gonna mindlessly accept it!" Rainbow insisted.

"Do you think that what Starlight Glimmer did was wrong?" Silver wondered.

'Yes, yes, yes, yes,'

"Yes, but she's trying to make up for it."

"Do you feel that bad deeds can become good deeds, if they have good intentions behind them?" Silver wondered.

'Yes, no, yes, no,'

"It really depends on what those things are-"

"What intentions can possibly justify what she did to the ponies under her care?" Silver wondered.

"I can explain!" Starlight gasped fearfully. Silver looked down at the mare, and raised his hoof from her throat, keeping it raised above her head, where he had it threaten to strike her face if he didn't like the answer. "My best friend from my foalhood got his Cutie Mark one day before me, he was sent to Magic School and he left me behind, and losing that friend hurt a lot. I thought that losing a friend hurt more than anything, so... I thought creating a world where nopony would ever have a friend taken away by his or her Cutie Mark would make things better for everypony."

"Oh." Silver said softly, blinking a few times. He took in a slow, deep breath. And then, he smiled, and removed his hoof from her throat. "Yeah, I can see the logic behind that." Silver admitted cheerfully, seeming to cheer up now that the mystery was solved. To add to the illusion, he used his magic to turn the record player back on, swing music filling the air once again as ponies resumed their conversations, and his horn stopped glowing. "All this time, I thought you were nothing more than a psychotic dictator hurting others for personal gain, but that actually does sound rather sweet."

"Now can you apologize for throwing Starlight around like that?" Rainbow asked angrily.

"Yeah, I suppose I was a bit harsh. And hey, we've all done bad things before, am I right?" Silver admitted, his heart rate increasing, though his tone was polite. He found it strangely thrilling, to find himself this passionate about something. Sure, he'd taken monsters down before in other worlds, and he'd seen some nasty foes, but this one was HERE, on HIS home turf, hurting REAL ponies in HIS world. Sure, those other worlds were also real, but this one felt MORE real, because it was his home. He hadn't gotten this mad over anything since he'd learned the secret to inner peace at that one place in Pandaland. He'd missed the feeling of finding yourself absolutely furious at a monster's evil, rather than simply recognizing and acknowledging it on a purely intellectual level. "Starlight, right? I think we got off on the wrong hoof, I'm Silver Star. It's actually quite fascinating that something like your village could exist in this world. I'm actually impressed that you pulled that off. Besides, we've all made mistakes. I've got a long list of ponies that hate my guts, too. How many ponies did you brainwash?"

"At least seventy-two." Starlight said, somewhat embarassed. Silver was sickened at how casual she was about this, as if she still didn't fully realize what was wrong about all of this, as if it was all only about as bad as an incredibly dumb prank you pulled or a dumber dare you carried out at Magic School that ponies still talked about for some reason you didn't understand. No, COULDN'T understand.

"Wow, my third favourite number!" Silver cheerfully chirped, and he noticed that something was... off. As angry as he was, he didn't feel as angry as he should be. He felt as if... Now that he'd made himself look bad in front of those who liked her, there wasn't any further point in remaining angry. The longer he spent around this pony, the more he felt like there was a wall inside his head, keeping his rage away from the controls. Or, to put it another way, it felt like something was dampening his anger. Slowly draining and regulating it. "Tell me, what happens to a pony when you artificially remove their Cutie Mark?" He asked, hoping she'd say something that could make him angry enough to attack again, no matter what the other ponies present thought or said.

"Everything that makes that pony special leaves with it, rendering them no more fast or powerful than the average pony, no matter what their physical condition was before a major source of their body's magic was removed." Starlight explained.

"Wow, you know a lot about this subject. How long did you spend studying this subject and preparing for that little cult misadventure?"

"My whole life, if you can believe it." Starlight admitted, chuckling.

"Starlight's trying to move on from all this stuff, maybe this isn't the best-" Rainbow began to say.

"Who was it that said 'You can only truly hate what you do not understand'?" Silver wondered. "You should own up to your past, and own it! I want to learn more about this, I'd like to get to know the Starlight Glimmer of today, and not just the Starlight Glimmer that mentally and emotionally tortured ponies until they broke- Wait, Starlight, can you take a stolen Cutie Mark and put it on yourself, and gain its power?"

"Yes. And since the magic of the marks have stabilized - since they all came from bodies that have gotten used to them - they won't force their bearer to carry out whatever talent the Mark makes them better at, like the accelerated marks made by a Cutie Pox victim would. I actually planned on using all the Cutie Marks from my town to power up my magic, once I had enough, so I could force my ideology on anypony that wouldn't just convert when everypony else did, and defend myself and my town from any attackers." Starlight admitted. "But when I got Twilight's Cutie Mark, that kind of power really sped things up."

"That's so messed up!" Silver laughed, and she laughed with him. While they laughed, Silver began to slowly walk over to a corner of the building, body language and a friendly smile suggesting she follow, and she did so, while Twilight watched the two with a small proud smile. "You took a whole town and took something from it they can never get back, that is a whole new level of messed up! Hey, did you have any plans for Celestia or Luna? Or Cadence and the Crystal Ponies?"

"Hey, aren't supposed to call them 'Princess Celestia' or something?" Starlight wondered, smiling.

"Aren't you supposed to not torture ponies?" Silver asked back with a grin, and he laughed as if that joke was something hilarious, prompting her to do the same. She did so.

Outside the barn, two Silvers appeared in twin flashes of blue light. "Something's wrong. Why can't we get properly angry at this monster?" One Silver asked the other as their horns lit up with blazing blue lights, one scanning the room and everypony in it while the other scanned for energy readings and the presence of any energy waves.

"It's Glimmer, she's one of THEM," The second Silver realized.

"One of what? I'm from before you were born, he didn't know whatever you know now when he made me." Silver reminded him.

His horn lighting up in blazing blue, he started to work on fine-tuning a spell to deal with what he saw, and he talked while he worked. "She's one of those strange anomalous life forms, with the ability to unconsciously warp reality around them. Almost as if reality itself is favouring her. She'll be able to do the impossible, not because she does it with more skill or determination than anyone else, or in some new and unexpected way, but instead, because it's her, and the impossible doesn't want to say no to her and hurt her feelings. No one being will be allowed to get mad at her, and nopony that gets mad will be allowed to stay mad at her, unless he or she is the bad guy in this character's 'Story', either temporarily or permanently. Her backstory will make little to no sense, as if she just popped out of the blue one morning and made something up on the spot when questioned. It's like reality is a game of Walls and Warlords, and the Dungeon Master made her own character, and gave her the coolest – and most sympathetic – backstory she could think of, plus infinite stats in everything that matters to the writer. As if the writer is doing that thing where rather than establishing things about the character, or influencing the character and his or her goals and worldviews, the backstory exists to impress potential fans. Long-lasting relationships will dissolve and romantic partners will treat each other awfully or die, all for her benefit. Miraculously powerful items will violate whatever normal cycle of inheritance they would normally have and fall right into his or her lap. Impossible abilities, impossible improvement rates, all with no justification. It's as if this anomalous entity emits some kind of mind-altering field that forces others to react how the anomaly wants. The universe loves her, and can't give her an adventure that doesn't paint her in the best light possible, even if it seems unnatural, even artificial. This being doesn't follow the rules of her own universe, and problems will be generated around her with obvious solutions a child could think of. If she walked into the castle of Celestia herself, the Princess would suddenly become a petty foal with the emotional maturity of wet lettuce, so she could fix Celestia's issues in under a few minutes. And if she wanted to conquer Equestria, she would only need to enter the country before Celestia herself was warped into an unrecognizable tyrant her loving citizens have suddenly always secretly loathed and longed for freedom from. It's like the being itself is a lie, a lie others are forced to believe in, a lie that damages the universe the longer it is allowed to exist. And I've seen what happens to universes where beings like this are allowed to exist, running around and eroding away the fabric of the universe with each subtle act of warping reality. Many cultures across the multiverse have names for this concept, and I remember selling some gear to a group that hunted these beings for sport, and to maintain the stability of the multiverse. They called these beings Anomalies on paper, but they had some unpronounceable nickname for these beings, it was mare... Something, but my own name for this type of impossible breed of eldritch creature is... Outlier."

There was a brief pause.

"Sure would be a shame if that eldritch status was torn out of her, eh?" Silver suggested, a grin forming on his face.

"Indeed," The Silver with a glowing horn announced, and unleashed a field of sparking blue energy from his horn that harmlessly passed through walls and through everypony at the party, clearing away the effects of any mental manipulation, followed by a jab in the mare's general direction, his hoof extending an orange energy beam visible only to him, pushing her 'Outlier' Status out of her body, through a wall, and out of the building. It slowed and stopped when it was a blue ball of visualized metaphorical energy, floating in the breeze like a big bubble.

* * *

"Um... Anyway, if the Princesses didn't stand down and let me equalize them when their townspeople demanded it, I'd take their marks myself after beating them in a Magic Duel," Glimmer decided.

Silver chuckled. "Yeah, and it's not like the ponies of Canterlot would have any loyalty to those who helped Ponykind prosper for this long. And it's not like a few thousand years of life and a few trillion books read and a few hundred years of using magic to discreetly listen to radio broadcasts of mixed magical arts matches during boring meetings could possibly prepare them for your overwhelming magical power, not when you can just throw mountains at dissenters." Silver said merrily and semi-sarcastically. "I mean, removing Cutie Marks... I didn't even think that was possible! You must have spent what, five, ten years working on that spell?"

"Twenty years, actually."

The swing music resumed.

A magical wave washed over them, and suddenly, Silver smiled for real, able to once again feel proper, unbridled anger, and truly enjoy it. Ponies around them, however, reacted like they'd just noticed they left their stove on and that their flies were down for months. Though many present might not have understood the latter, as many were nudists. However, the shocking realization here that prompted this realization... was that a monster was in their midst. "A full twenty years! You spent twenty years preparing for your cult's rise to power, stage one of your planned assault on Cutie Marks and the very concepts of talent and self-discovery themselves," He said in surprise, a little too loudly, attracting the attention of a few ponies around him, who turned to look at him. "With no distractions, not even a stallion or mare or slime monster to keep you company?"

"No, I focused on my research the whole time."

"Woooooooow. Hey, what happens if you take a Crystal Pony's Cutie Mark?"

"I'm... not sure." Starlight admitted, realizing that she'd never thought of that. "Probably the same thing that happens to anypony, but with the long lives and weird memory stuff of Crystal Ponies, I'm not sure. I'm also not sure what effect it'd have on their magic-conductive bio-crystal bodies."

"Huh. Hey, what happens if a pony dies after you take their Cutie Mark?"

She was a little surprised that he could just say a horrible Bad Word like that, but that made him a bad boy, which clearly excited her, and made him, in her eyes, somepony she wanted to impress. "The Cutie Mark stays alive, and you can give it to whoever you want. But only if you take it off before they... um... end up destroyed."

"Oh, that is EVIL!" Silver stage-whispered in approval, clenching his own throat to force down the rising bile as she giggled and agreed with him like they were two bratty foals discussing ways to squeeze extra treats out of their parents.

"I know, right?" Glimmer laughed, and a few ponies around her grit their teeth and tried to remember Twilight telling them to treat this 'Reformed' pony as if she'd done nothing wrong, so she could get used to the idea of being a good pony, rather than an evil one.

"Hey, you know how when ponies get really depressed, they turn grey?" Silver asked. "Did any ponies in your village end up like that?"

"Of course! But I forced them to pretend to be fine in public, because being sad over losing your Cutie Mark means not believing what I say hard enough, and we can't have that, can we?"

Silver choked on something in his throat, and when he recovered, he forced a smile. "No, your world just wouldn't be able to handle a fate like that. You might lose control over those ponies! And then who would be around to make decisions for them?"

"Exactly," She agreed.

"Your little village was around for a long time, and I heard you had far more Cutie Marks than you had Villagers, so I have to ask... Did any of them turn so grey, they turned to dust and died?" He asked curiously, trying to sound as if it was something casual one friend asked another.

"Yes, but they started to fill up my Cutie Mark Vault after a while, so I made sure their sacrifices weren't in vain."

Hope drained from his face. "You consumed the magic of the Cutie Marks the oldest Dusted ponies left behind," He stated. "To make room for new ones."

Glimmer laughed. "Hey, it would only go to waste if I didn't."

"...Oh." Silver replied numbly.

She... She bullied ponies into suicide, many ponies, and... and...

He couldn't even begin to describe how wrong this was.

How? How could a monster like this exist in this world, warping what should have been a cheerful pony world where the worst foes were big, dangerous monsters with terrible maws and terrible jaws and terrible teeth and terrible claws, this was a world where food grew on the ground and ponies made ovens to bake cupcakes, this wasn't...

What planet was this abomination from? What disgusting creature had injected such a crime against this world into this world, to commit more crimes?

"But really, I have to ask... What happens if changelings attack your glorified gelding village, and nopony can save them besides the magical equivalent of a violent brute who's no more invulnerable to mind magic or meteors or having her love drained than any other pony, regardless of magical power?" Silver asked pointedly, his polite mask slipping as the swing music in the room seemed to gain a metallic undertone. He internally kicked himself as he realized he was showing his hand a bit too much, but that just made him even more furious. This MONSTER brought out such incredible feelings of hate within him... What a fascinating experience this was!

"Well, I..." Starlight began, realizing she hadn't thought of that.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no," Her face repeated to him in that moment.

"Also, if the town baker can't even bake muffins without burning them horribly, and nopony else can cook any better, how is your town's builder supposed to build anything worth talking about?" Silver suddenly threw out an easy question, the swing music returning to normal.

"Oh, we didn't have a builder, my townsponies built those homes together." Starlight answered, glad to have the subject changed.

"Let me guess, they did the heavy lifting, despite losing everything that made them strong, and you oversaw development, despite still having a Cutie Mark?"

She seemed confused. "What's wrong with overseeing development?" Starlight asked.

"Fair point, I oversee development often enough." Silver chuckled, and he relaxed. "Hey, did you have any good books in your town?"

"No, I kinda ordered all the books that didn't agree with what I told them or suggest that it was was right to be thrown in a pile and burned." Starlight admitted like she was a mare nervously admitting she'd never seen one of the greatest books in a popular series she claimed to be a fan of, and Silver's hatred of her grew just a little bit more, something he didn't realize was possible, but in retrospect, seemed obvious and entirely plausible, since he had lines she'd already crossed and plenty of lines she hadn't yet gotten around to crossing. "Cookbooks are allowed, since they look big, but every page more advanced than Muffins is blacked out, and the Muffins page itself gets its recipe altered. Wouldn't want somepony to feel accomplished after making something complex or delicious, and regain her Cutie Mark! Books on magic and science are banned, nopony really needs to know that stuff in a truly equal society."

"I take it weapons are banned, too?" Silver asked.

"Of course!"

"Of course, of course, nopony would need a weapon with a living weapon like you to protect them, whether they like it or not," Silver finished for her, and she nodded in approval. "How about fiction, what were your general rules when it came to censoring fiction?"

"Books where the main characters go about their lives and nopony becomes a hero are allowed, but books where the hero rebels against authority, or wins a contest, or survives a disaster, or violently slays a demon, or a giant, or any other monster, they get burned. Of course, I kept a copy of most of the banned books. But only the ones I might need, like books on animals and first aid! I kept them in a locked safe in my basement." Starlight confided to him gleefully, like they were two old mares sharing delightfully devlilish pranks they'd pulled at the local home for old folks this week, and Silver's hatred of her grew just a little bit more, something he didn't realize was possible until now, though in retrospect, seemed obvious and entirely plausible, since he had plenty of moral lines, and it would take some serious effort to cross all of them. Of course, she'd crossed most of them so far. Theft, from innocents. The exploitation of innocents. Lying, for a bad cause. Creating a cult. Hypocrisy. Repeated and intentional malicious alteration of the timeline, creating who even knew how many bad alternate timelines full of ruined lives and likely-dead ponies who should have lived. The destruction of not just any Equestria, but HIS Equestria, more than ten times in a single day. And an insufferable, selfish, arrogant little 'I am smarter than you, only I am right, only I know what is best for all, and any who seek to oppose me are wrong' attitude. With a heaped tablespoon of 'I am what I am and wanting me to change that is wrong', with salt and 'Tee hee hee I love being evil, it's so fun to be bad' to taste!

He wouldn't mind the arrogance so much, if she had a reason to BE arrogant. But aside from her status as an Outlier and the magical power she stole in a manner that was basically like Tirek's way of stealing magic but with more steps, more cruelty, and more permanence, she was nothing. She wasn't intelligent, she wasn't cute, she wasn't funny, and she wasn't a pleasant pony to be around. The egotism of this spiteful little overgrown and mentally-underdeveloped foal made his skin crawl, and the pony part of his mind was screaming at him to give this animal enough Magical Friendship to make a small crater where she used to be.

"You know, you've said a lot of interesting things to me, today," Silver said, "And I'd love to write them down in a book some day, I'm sure it would be a great seller. It'd be a great book. Just... The best book, ever. I'll write it a few days from now. But I have to ask... how is an Equalized teacher supposed to teach a classroom full of foals without any talent to speak of?"

"I'd teach the foals everything they need to know." Starlight said, and Silver felt his anger build.

With a detached curiousity, he wondered what would happen if somepony like him became 'Too' angry. He'd seen plenty of monsters before, sentient and otherwise. With sentient ones, he'd coldly set up tricks and traps and clever schemes to part them with what allowed them to hurt others, and he'd used violence only as a last resort. Well, a last resort when violence wasn't the quickest, simplest, and cleanest solution to a problem like 'There are Cattle Rustlers here' or 'There are poachers here' or 'There are henchponies here'. With those who couldn't think, he liked to remove their ability to harm others with a rather different and permanent method. If it couldn't be blamed for being evil, he'd turn it into something that could have the evil trained out of it, and if it couldn't be helped, or saved, he'd abuse some broken spells and show off. He'd never found himself angry enough to violently lash out at another thinking before, but he was finding it hard to remind himself, and remind himself again and again, that this mare was sentient, which meant she deserved the tricky treatment, not the meteor treatment.

"And what do the ponies of your town 'Need to know'?" Silver wondered.

"That the world's a better place when it's equal." Starlight admitted.

"Oh? So you don't think it's your ideology that hurt ponies, but rather, its implementation?" Silver asked.

"Definitely. How can an ideology that wants to make the world more equal ever be bad? My mistake was trying to force it on ponies, but if I convince ponies to peacefully convert to it and support it, things will go a lot smoother."

"That's what they all say, but alright. By the way, I've always been curious, so do tell me, HOW IS YOUR EQUALIZED TOWN'S DOCTOR SUPPOSED TO CURE ANYPONY THAT GETS SICK?!" Silver roared, suddenly shouting, and ponies who'd been pretending not to listen in whipped their heads around to look at him in shock. A pony stopped the music, and a quick glance at the reflective surface of Starlight's shocked eyes told him that it was Pinkie Pie, and she was eating from a bowl of popcorn she... suddenly had.

"I-" Starlight began, and then realized that she hadn't thought of that, either. She soon found an answer. "I can look in a book, and find out what it is, and-"

"And what if it's a new illness, something only spoken of in books too new to have made its way to your town and get on your 'Approved reading' list? What if it's a new illness the books haven't written anything about yet? What if it's an illness that's supposed to be written about by a foal who should have been a doctor, but, thanks to your Equalism, became another nopony in your herd? Diseases grow and evolve, what gives you the right to stop other ponies from doing something that all living things are meant to do?" Silver demanded. "To grow and evolve and improve is the very essence of life itself, what gives you the right to stamp that out? What gives you the right to put the world at the mercy of sickness and genocidal monsters and, worst of all, _Tirek?"_

"I... I was going to..." She stammered.

"You were going to sentence the world to a slow, horrible death, all in the name of your crusade against the very concepts of talent and ability themselves. What, you don't think word got out about WHY you brainwashed ponies, WHY you created a town full of slaves in body and mind? GO ON, TELL EVERYPONY HERE WHY!"

"Why ask me if you already know?" She demanded.

"I WANT TO HEAR YOU SAY IT. These ponies NEED to hear you say it. I want confirmation that you actually are what they say you are."

"Fine. Everypony?" She announced, sarcastically crafting an illusionary metal fork and wine glass suspended in her horn's glow, tapping the fork on the glass to create a bell-like sound, then dropping the illusion and letting the glass and fork fade out of existence. The ponies around them, who were already watching, grew more irritated by the insultingly emphasized gesture. "I took over a town and took everypony's Cutie Mark away from them, and I brainwashed ponies into liking it. And when ponies said they didn't like them, I shamed them for it, I turned everypony else in my cult against them, and then I locked them in my brainwashing room, where they were forced to listen to me tell them to love Equalism for hours and hours. And when Twilight stopped me, and freed all my ponies, I got mad at her. So I stalked her until I heard about the most important day in her life, and then I went back in time to stop Rainbow Dash from performing the Sonic Rainboom over and over again, creating multiple alternate timelines that got worse each time I blasted Rainbow Dash as a filly, or turned her to crystal or, talked her and everypony else into giving up on competition forever, or blasted her out of the sky. Twilight told me to stop. She told me the fate of Equestria hung in the balance, but I didn't listen. And I was willing to keep on ruining Equestria until I got too old to keep doing it, because Twilight JUST WOULDN'T LET ME WIN!"

She turned and glared at Silver. "There, happy?" She asked bitterly.

Silver's face was blank. He wasn't even sure what facial expression would be right here.

"Happy... Am I happy?" Silver quietly asked himself. "Well, let's see. You created a world where Sombra took over the Crystal Empire, enslaved its Crystal Ponies, and forced them to attack Equestria, creating a war so lengthy and brutal that by the time Rainbow Dash was an adult, she had LOST ONE OF HER WINGS. You created a world where 99% of Ponykind had been devoured by Changelings under Queen Chrysalis, and nothing was left of Equestria besides a tiny resistance force barely one hundred ponies strong, led by Fluttershy and Zecora, hiding in the Everfree Forest. You created a world where Nightmare Moon took over, and sentenced the world to eternal night. You created a world where Discord was free to run around, toying with Celestia and Luna, who he turned into helpeless fillies after driving everypony else to madness and erasing what was left of them with a snap of his claws once they'd stopped amusing him. You created a world where the Flim Flam Brothers gained the resources necessary to plunder the world dry, and did so. You created a world where Tirek won. You sentenced a world to eternal night under Nightmare Moon. You created a world where so much went wrong, Celestia had to become one with the sun and move it closer to the earth for a few weeks, burning away everything and turning this planet into a ruined wasteland. And even though you threw Twilight into ruined timeline after ruined timeline, and even though she told you what you were doing to Equestria when you spitefully travelled through time to specifically ruin her life, you didn't believe her because you still thought you were doing the right thing, even after all of that. All because when you were a filly, your best friend got his Cutie Mark and was sent off to Celestia's School, leaving you alone." Silver finished. And then, rage built on his face. "Right?

Glimmer rolled her eyes. "Yes, that too. Are you happy now?"

All was silent for a moment, save the sound of Pinkie Pie eating popcorn.

"Wow... Really?" Apple Bloom wondered.

"Seriously?" Scootaloo asked.

"I think it's kinda sad." Sweetie Belle admitted, feeling bad for the mare.

"Yeah, in a bad way." Scootaloo pointed out. "This is like a way lamer version of that comic where Filli-Second accidentally changes history and messes everything up and Reverse Filli-Second won't let her change it back."

Murmurs of "THAT'S her reason?" and "I knew she was bad, but she really messed with time?" and similar utterances shared between groups of friends filled the room, and Silver felt an odd sense of satisfaction.

Silver blinked a few times, and grew angrier. "And now that I say this out loud, I realize fully just how horrible you are. You ruined the timestream over seven times, you enabled dictators and monsters almost as awful as yourself to conquer the world in your stead, and you did all this because you were JEALOUS OVER YOUR BEST FRIEND GETTING A SPOT IN A SCHOOL YOU WEREN'T GOOD ENOUGH TO ENTER?! Yeah, don't you just hate when your best friend leaves you? That's totally a good justification for creating alternate timelines _in which thousands, if not millions die_ , all to spite the pony that SHOWED YOU HERSELF that your dumb fallacious Equalist ideology is wrong!"

There was a pause, as this sunk in.

"Wait a minute... No it isn't!" Pinkie protested.

Silver's rage left him for a few brief moments. "I know, it was sarcasm." Silver explained casually, before going back to glaring at Starlight.

"Oooooohhhhhh... Ok." Pinkie shrugged, and ate more popcorn.

"You know, Starlight... I follow a comic series named 'Vitreous and Fern'. It prominently features an evil background character who's supposed to be evil and utterly pathetic. He's supposed to have a hilariously shallow to perform evil acts, such as stealing his town's garden gnomes, and deflating every inflatable in town, and trying to block out the sun. And every time, he's stopped by a heroic secret agent, a Platypus. He's supposed to be a joke, and yet despite everything he's done and tried to do, you're worse than he is, and you have less of a reason to do any of it. You're more pathetic than Doctor Daydreamsmiles! But while that fictional loser is written to make me feel sorry for him, you... you make me sick! Heck, why am I bringing up fictional characters when I could bring up Sombra, or better yet, Tirek! The ponies of this town remember Tirek, right?"

Townsponies shouted their affirmation, a few looking back at their Cutie Marks to make sure they were still there.

"Tirek drained magic from ponies to make himself stronger, because he wanted to rule over all as the only being with magic, and the only being able to be strong! Starlight, you stole Cutie Marks from ponies after brainwashing them into thinking Cutie Marks are bad, because you wanted to take those Cutie Marks and rule over all as the only being with magic, and the only being allowed to be strong! How is what you did any different?! What makes him deserve an eternity imprisoned in Tartarus, when you get to pal around with the Princess?" Silver demanded from his foe, and the townsponies agreed with a loud 'Yeah!'. "Starlight Glimmer... You think Equalizing the world is a good thing because you think it makes the world fairer, right? Well, objectively speaking, you are a worse pony than Tirek, you are more evil than Tirek, and you have done worse things than Tirek, and I don't think it's 'Fair' or 'Equal' that he rots in tartarus for being what he is, an evil monster born evil, while you get to pal around with somepony that'll protect you because she can't see what everypony else can!"

"Yeah!" The townsponies agreed again, and visible rage began to build within Starlight Glimmer.

"Don't you think I know that?" She snapped, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Oh, good, you've FINALLY figured out that it's wrong to steal Cutie Marks and outlaw free thought and torture ponies." Silver semi-snarked and semi-snarled. "Or maybe you're just upset because ponies are getting mad at you for doing it. Who can tell with fakers like you? Are you sorry for doing evil, or sorry for being caught? Where were those tears, where was that remorse, when you were giggling to me about what a devious and successful evil overlord you thought you were? Oh, if only you figured out that being good is good, and being evil is evil, before you DEDICATED YOUR LIFE TO MENTALLY ABUSING THE PONIES OF EQUESTRIA TO FILL THE VOID YOUR ONE AND ONLY FRIEND LEFT BEHIND WHEN HE MOVED ON AND YOU DIDN'T."

"Twilight showed me that friendship is better than hate! She showed me the magic of friendship!" She insisted.

"And you spat on it! You smirked at it, stepped on it, and spat on it! Twilight gave you new friends to latch on to, AND YOU BRAINWASHED THEM, because when you wanted to 'Chill out' with them and they suggested better ways to chill, when they criticized your bad ideas and offered better alternatives, you got mad! Because they weren't just blindly doing what you say, like the cult ponies did! You were mad because they were better at chilling than you! Honestly, I have to wonder, if Twilight grows stronger than you, or if a foal beats you in some multiplayer arcade game, will it make you freak out and go on YET ANOTHER rampage against the concepts of talent and ability themselves?"

"No, I-"

"Oh, good, you're all rampage'd out. I guess that means the fillies and foals in this town can sleep easy, knowing you won't torture them, their parents, or their heroes again! We can all just ignore what you've done, because you're so certain you'll never do it again! You're CERTAINLY not going to relapse again and mind-control ponies for speaking out against you- Wait a minute, isn't that what you did to Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Applejack for DISAGREEING WITH YOU, AND SUGGESTING BETTER WAYS OF DOING THINGS when Twilight said you had to 'Chill out' with them? She wanted you to learn how to be a good pony, but you can't! You see redemption as a checklist, but it doesn't work that way! You don't get to pick and choose when your penance ends!"

"Can you get over that already?!" Glimmer demanded.

Silver roared and punched the ground, the shockwave shaking the ground itself and sending a spiderweb of cracks out through the ground. He closed his eyes. "Inner peace, inner peace," He furiously and urgently repeated to himself, "I am a leaf on the wind, and I am the wind, I am the tree and I am all things, and they are me, find the center, the golden ratio from which all things spiral..."

When he'd seemingly finished calming himself down, he opened his eyes again. "You disgusting hypocrite," He growled.

He cleared his throat, and put on a smile. "I mean, are you serious? YOU'RE asking ME to get over something? Get real! Couldn't YOU get over your only friend moving on from you?"

"No!" Glimmer shouted, and she groaned, like a teenager whose mother wouldn't let her go to the wild teen party happening tonight, the one all the cool ponies were going to. "Shut up, already! Twilight redeemed me! What I did is in the past! It's over, so stop whining about it."

Right as his smiling mask started to slip again, he decided to just stop trying to pretend he was calm. "Redeemed?! REDEEMED?! Ponies do not redeem other ponies, ponies redeem themselves! In attitude, and in deed. You claim you're redeemed? You could have fooled me! Laughing about your crimes with what seems to be a fellow monster while wondering why nopony's willing to – OR ABLE TO - fully forget the tortures you put them through isn't something a 'Good pony' does. You don't want to be redeemed, you don't want to redeem yourself, you just want ponies to forget about unpleasant facts, like the crimes against ponykind and the universe you've committed in the name of an ideology that doesn't even work."

Silver seemed to calm down. "Look, I know I'm not the nicest pony on the planet. Not a lot of ponies ever called Silver Star nice. I beat the evil out of bad guys, more than I really have to. Most are still trapped in stone, or cards, and the rest are still in the hospital. If I go to a fancy restaurant and the food is bad, I make it a policy to teleport away and leave them with the bill. But, even a jerk like me... can spot true evil when he sees it! Ponies don't just call me a hero because of my charity work, they call me a hero because I channel my appreciation for destruction and ruination constructively. I hunt down the rich and powerful and politically untouchable, and I ruin their evil plans and take everything they have, to make this world and other worlds into better places. I've seen some ponies get away with things they shouldn't, and I've done bad things to worse ponies to take them down and protect the good ones. I throw most of the money I take to the victims of the monsters I stole it from. When I said we've all done some bad things, that's what I was talking about. And you? I've taken on thieving outlaws, thugs, con artists, bankers, white-collar criminals, golden-collar criminals, crime syndicates, loan sharks, phony future-seers, evil alternate universe versions of great heroes, Changeling co-conspirators, art thieves, underworld kingpins, and more tragic monsters than anypony would expect, and never before have I seen anypony so EVIL, or PATHETIC!"

 **"QUIET!"** Starlight roared, her face contorted with fury, a vein bulging in her neck, shocking most of the ponies around her.

Silver's glare could have melted steel. " _ **No**_."

She was taken aback, and Silver pressed on. "Some say those who are truly evil... Are those who prey upon the weak and commit atrocities without any consideration for their victims. Some say those who are truly evil... Are those who commit atrocities without realizing it. And some say those who are truly evil... Are those who commit atrocities and pat themselves on the back for it, because they think they're doing what's best for everypony. They think they know better than anypony else what the world needs. And that is exactly what you are, isn't it? Thanks to your little 'Outlier' gimmick, you get to hide from your victims, the law, and the consequences. That's why... I will judge you myself!"

Starlight Glimmer laughed and laughed like a crazy pony. "Oh, really? You're going to judge me? Some fancy-pants Canterlot rich-boy who's never worked a day in his life?"

"I didn't inherit this money, you idiot." Silver growled. "What, do you think my father gave me a small loan of a million bits, and I got lucky on where I invested it? No, my parents were farmers, and so was I! I worked the fields, I farmed crops, and I fertilized them myself! When I was a young colt, I fought Cattle Rustlers with my own bare hooves and a horn that could only cast three spells! And when I got older, I made my own vehicle and rode it from my hometown to Manehattan, where I got a job at an antique store. I saved my money, so I could take a taxi to Canterlot, where I EARNED my spot at The Royal Canterlot Academy for Magical Duelling, and I studied harder than anypony else in that college ever did! I didn't whine about how unfair destiny was to make some ponies into magical dieties and make others into farmers! I took destiny into my own hooves and I made it give me what I wanted, and what I wanted was a better life, and a place where I could give others better lives, and do more good than I could as some Frontier Town's Sherrif. And now I run the biggest company in this corner of the Multiverse, ponies in sixty worlds grow up WISHING they were me, I made my own place at the top and I earned it."

That shocked a lot of ponies. But one's reaction was pretty much what Silver expected.

"Yeah, right." Glimmer said, rolling her eyes.

Silver rolled his own eyes in turn. "Wooooow. Of course, of course, of course. If that's your response to hearing information you find hard to believe, well, I guess that's one of the many differences between us."

"What do you mean?" She narrowed her eyes in suspicion.

I find it hard to believe that an adult pony could remain so disgustingly foalish, even in her adult years, but I still engaged you in open discussion to find out the root cause of that. And I must say, your 'Justification' for destroying the timestream more than seven times in one day and trying to destroy Equestria before that... I'm not impressed. In fact, I'm impressed at how much rage you're able to inspire within me, and that's it. FOALS get sad when their friends move away, and whether it takes a few days or a few weeks, they eventually GET OVER IT." Silver explained. "But YOU... you blamed his departure on Cutie Marks, and you let that hate inside you grow and consume you until you wasted your whole life searching for a way to take revenge on the very idea of Cutie Marks..." He smirked. "When you know in your heart that if he cared for you as much as you cared for him, he would have turned that offer down and stayed with you."

Glimmer punched him in the face, but it was like punching a titanium sculpture. Even the area she'd touched seemed to have been transmuted to metal by some kind of spell, though only temporarily. She chipped her hoof, and screamed.

"I'm invincible when I'm angry," He explained. "Old Pandarian secret. Did I tell you about the time I skipped my Magic College's Spring Break party in Las Haygas to study magical secrets all over Neighpon and Pandaland? It's one of a few neat little tricks I picked up, while learning how to control my rage, so it doesn't control me. I used to have some issues with that. Here's another one."

His horn lit up, and with the accuracy of a Sherrif, he fired a brief, sharp laser at one of the balloons. It pierced right through, but instead of popping the balloon, it remained whole, as if it was a watermelon somepony had shot a laser through. The two holes on either side of the balloon spun and turned black, peeling off the balloon like stickers, leaving unharmed blue rubber behind, and flying through the air like thrown shuriken, before curving and flying at Glimmer. She flipped over a table full of food and used it as a shield, and the holes stuck themselves onto the table, becoming real holes once again.

She sighed in relief.

And then, far faster than before, before she could even react, they turned black again and shot straight at her, sticking to her like the icy hands of death itself and crawling across her body like scuttling insects, until one rested on her right Cutie Mark and one rested on the side of her horn.

"All I have to do is think it, and those fake holes turn into real ones," Silver explained. "The technique in question is called Eye Of The Needle, a technique from a magical martial arts style the Pandas invented. Some might think it's a useless ability, when Unicorns can always just use magic to make holes wherever they want, but I find the ability to move holes around has proven itself to be quite useful, in practice. The magical martial art in question? It's called The Spin, and you wouldn't believe how long it took me to master it. Well, I say 'Master', but I'm really only sixty percent done learning it. So, don't make any sudden moves, alright? I might slip up, and let one of those black spots drill a hole through something important."

Nervously, Glimmer nodded her head. She could feel the holes on her, two deathly cold circular patches of spiralling black.

"Now, let's make this a proper debate. Instead of a series of monologues, where we each preach our respective ideologies, let's have a dialogue, where we talk to each other, and we see who's right. So, Glimmer... Why do you think eliminating the differences between ponies will make the world a better place?"

"If there are no differences between ponies, nopony can bully another for being different."

"So you'd rather bully all differences out of ponies." Silver said flatly.

"Well, when you say it like that..." Glimmer began.

Silver cast a truth spell on Glimmer.

"Yes, I would like to use group psychology, public shaming, and the threat of getting locked in a Punishment Room to force all ponies to conform for fear of upsetting me and the rest of the herd. Ponies should hide what makes them better or worse than others so everypony can live in perfect equality."

"That's pretty awful," Silver admitted. "What if the differences between ponies are differences in ability?"

"I'd like to intimidate more talented ponies into staying quiet, so they won't upset less talented ponies. And shame those who do. And I'd like to use magic to rip the talents and abilities from ponies, to make an example of them, so they HAVE to follow the herd like good little fillies and foals!"

"Why?" Silver asked.

"Because upsetting ponies is wrong!"

"But you don't think forcing a system onto ponies that terrifies and terrorizes them for every minute of every hour of every day is wrong?"

"Not if it forces ponies to be good!"

"It doesn't force ponies to be good, it just takes something good away from Equestrians! Ponies are naturally different from one another. So are Diamond Dogs, and Griffons, and more. Twilight Sparkle is different from Rainbow Dash, and she's different from Mrs Cake, and she's different from Princess Celestia. And ponies like these ponies. Ponies like being who they are, which means being different. I like being different from other ponies. I hated it for a while, when I was younger, but then I learned to appreciate the unique things that made me who I am. I could do things they couldn't. Why would you want to take those abilities away from me and others?"

"Because where there is inequality, there is unfairness."

"So you're just planning to police reality and artificially force the world to conform to your idea of equality, is that it?"

"Yes! Most ponies might be good, but many ponies are spiteful bullies. If they have nothing to bully other ponies other, they'll HAVE to be good."

"That isn't how it works. They'll bully ponies for other things, like their body colours, or eye colours, or size, or shape, or manestyles, or age, or any other thing you can't change without casting a spell that'll turn every life form on this planet into a samey grey blob, unable to do anything differently from anypony else, or say anything different, or even think anything different. How about, instead of wanting ponies to be 'Equal', you instead start wanting ponies to be 'Good'?"

"But ponies aren't good! They're only as good as their situation allows them to be. For every six good ponies, there are thousands of panicky animals who'll sell their family out in a heartbeat!" Glimmer insisted. And then, the truth spell compelled her to add, "At least, that is what I believe! And I believed that ever since the other ponies around my hometown made fun of me for not getting over my lost friend!"

"That's wrong, and also really pathetic. THAT killed your faith in Ponykind, and made you want to create a world where no pony could dislike or like another samey pony enough to form real bonds with another pony?"

"I... guess?" Glimmer was forced to say, the truth spell rendering her unable to deny it.

"Oh, so that's how it works?" Silver asked in disgust. "A foal can't chew solid food, so I'm not allowed to have it either?"

"Well if you're going to act like a foal," She commented, and Trixie obnoxiously "Oooh!"ed at him.

Nopony else reacted in the same way, though, because Glimmer's reality-warping aura was gone. Ponies stared awkwardly at her as they wondered how Silver could be considered the one acting foalish here.

That made her nervous. She quickly looked around and showed off that strange facial expression of hers. A big, fake grin, with nervous eyebrows. The face of a cowardly manipulator trying to look like a nervous pony who was trying to look cheerful, a silent beg for leniency.

"A lying terrorist who shot a filly to maliciously ruin the timeline over seven times in one afternoon, dooming Equestria to a world of war with a Sombra-dominated Crystal Empire, a world full of feral Changelings, a world of eternal night, a world charred and burned away, AND WORSE, all because her crush left her, is calling me a foal?" He chuckled in disbelief. A few ponies gave out "Ooooh!"s of their own, and a few other ponies were saddened at the mention of these alternate timelines, and the reminder that they were all still suffering. Well, except for the burned world. The suffering was finally over for that one. "Look, Glimmy, could you drop the childish insults and address the points I make in my argument? And can you stop trying to weasel your way out of having to defend your views in the first place? You don't see me insulting you, and believe me, Time-Breaker, I have a lot to work with. But please, tell me: In what way am I, in your words, acting like a foal?"

"Well, you aren't debating in good faith." She explained. "That's what I believe."

"And that means?" He asked pointedly.

"You don't think my ideology is worth anything. You've already made your mind up, and I can't change that, so-"

"So you suck at this." He interrupted, to the surprise of a few ponies. "If you can't have a proper debate over the merits of your ideology, it either lacks merit, or you don't have enough faith in its merits, which means you should stop buying into it. And you certainly had enough faith in it before, when you tried to force it upon all of Equestria. You sure seemed to have faith in your ideology when you were stopped, and you were offered redemption, and you instead chose to stalk her and figure out what important moment of her life to ruin when you went back in time to destroy Equestria and make it easier for you to conquer. What, are you scared that if you get into a debate, you'll lose and have to admit you were wrong all along? Come on, you and me, one on one. No items, no prep time, mature arguments only, this is the final destination."

"But if we can't agree on who's right, what's the point?" She asked.

"We can't agree on _what's_ right, Glimmer." Silver retorted. "You think a society that lets ponies try and fail is immoral, and you think it's the responsibility of ponies everywhere to create a society where that can't happen, right?"

"Right," Glimmer agreed.

"And I think freedom is good. Having the freedom to fail and the freedom to succeed is an integral part of freedom. Yes, there should be a safety net so failing doesn't hurt you too much, so you can get back up and try again. And you shouldn't use theft and shame to try and turn that safety net into a spiderweb of sloth that encourages everypony trapped in it to sit around and never try to get out! I think you should be able to own things and farm things without having to worry about others stealing them, and I think you should be free to trade your property and services for the property and services of other law-abiding citizens. And I think it's the responsibility of every law-abiding citizen to aid in the defence of law-abiding areas, either through having a way to defend your home, property, and town from Outlaws, or helping out those who do in some other way. Maybe through taxes. I'm not a fan of taxes, but paying the local Militia or Sheriff or national army for protecting the town is one of the few taxes I can personally get behind. But here's the thing, we can't agree on who's right because we haven't properly debated your ideas against mine. I think your ideology is a giant cart of horseapples, and you don't, that's why we're having this little disagreement over the validity of your ideology." He explained, and a few younger ponies sniggered over his choice of language there, their waning attentions returning, their parents covering the ears of their foals in shock. "That's where disagreements come from, ponies who think differently from one another. You think you're right, I think I'm right, but if we never talk this out like rational adults, we'll never find out who's really right. Now, let's discuss how wrong you are."

"Why can't we talk this out as equals?" Glimmer whined.

"Because we aren't equal! I'm an unconventional hero, you're a common criminal with too much power and nowhere near enough common sense. Your ideology brought your town and all of Equestria to ruin many times over, my ideology is the ideology that evolved through natural selection of ideas, the apex predator of governmental systems, the foundation that the most ethical and free society possible was built upon. But fine, let's keep debating. Earlier on, you said you want to steal gifts and talents away from ponies, so they don't bully others for lacking those gifts and talents. Speaking of taking stuff away from Equestrians, what do you think of my wealth?"

"I hate it. And I hate you. I want all your excess money taken away from you, so you'll be left with nothing but the scraps you need to survive."

"Hm, like what I had when I was just another young Frontier foal, before my rise to fame and fortune. But isn't stealing wrong?"

"Not if it's done to bad ponies, like you."

Silver chuckled. "I've taken down white-collar criminals, golden-collar criminals, evil nobles, evil Kings and Queens, even evil Princesses. I've taken down monsters who tried to feed virus-infected meat to the world, so their friends can sell cures at a premium. I've even made life considerably harder on unethical businessponies who use Planned Obsolescence to sell marginal upgrades to pointless devices at high prices, without actually taking them down properly, because what they were doing was unethical, but not really an offense punishable by a ruined career. I've saved multiple Equestrias, including this one. I'm a hero. So what, in your eyes, makes me a bad pony?"

"You're rich, and that's wrong. Rich ponies are greedy, because they hoard wealth and resources. You should all be forced share them with everypony else."

"Really? But if I sell ten apples, and make twenty bits, why should I share some of those bits with the ponies to whom I sold the apples?"

"Because it's the right thing to do."

"Why?"

"Because sharing is good!"

"So I should be forced to 'Share' what I earned, for fear of imprisonment or worse?"

"Yes."

"That's theft."

"No, rich ponies steal from everypony else by being rich! And the worst ones are businessponies, who get rich off the labour of others, and pay those working-class ponies pennies! You should be forced to pay all your employees a cut of your profits!"

"Hmm... Earlier, you mentioned that I should share my wealth with everypony. Does that mean I should share my wealth with my customers and give them a cut of the profits, too?"

"Yes!"

"That isn't how it works."

"I believe that's how it works!"

"See, first of all, Wealth, and Value... These aren't finite resources that just exist in the world, until they're taken from the world by ponies, or donkeys or diamond dogs, or whatever. The first ponies to evolve in Equestria certainly weren't the richest ponies who ever lived, even though they had more of the world to themselves, and fewer ponies to share it with. They had less than what the ponies of today have, because farming tools, mining tools, rope, the printing press, books, tables, torches, and so much more just hadn't been invented yet. Sure, they might have had more trees around their homes, but without the knowledge on how to turn those trees into houses, or the tools to have an easier time doing it, those trees were less valuable than trees are today. The more ponies there are in the world, the more thinkers there are to think of new ways to use the natural resources the planet has. I certainly wasn't the one who thought of using Corn Syrup as a power source for magi-electrical generators, and with how many lives that pony improved and how many beautiful lights in Las Haygas he helped light up, I'd say that pony deserved to get rich."

"What's your point?" Glimmer asked angrily.

Silver sucked in a deep breath and prepared to respond.

"Got any twos?" Apple Bloom asked the rest of the fillies and foals in Ponyville, playing a card game with them to pass the time.

"Go Fish," Scootaloo said, and the camera went back to the argument between Glimmer and Silver.

"I'm rich." Silver said. "Which means, if I felt like it, I could hire a construction company from Manehattan, and pay them all a lot of money to make a big hotel in this town, and I could pay extra to make them do it quickly. And then I could hire ponies in this town to work at my hotel. And because I'm rich, I would always be able to pay the ponies who work for me, even on slow months, where not a lot of ponies feel like paying me to stay in my new hotel. Even when owning this hotel and paying ponies to clean it and cook for it and work as bag-movers and room-cleaners and elevator repairponies and hundreds of other jobs ends up costing me more money than it makes, I'll be rich, so I'll still be able to pay these ponies what they're owed, and no more. And when my hotel becomes a success, getting ALL of the profits it makes... Well, all of the profits that don't go to the Shareholders who financially supported me, helped me fund this hotel, and helped me make this hotel-running dream of mine a reality... Those profits will be my reward for making this hotel, creating new jobs, improving this town's economy, and bringing money from outside this town... into this town. And even if my reasons for making that hotel were purely selfish, and any good I did in the process was a side benefit, would that really change the good I would do with that hotel? Is Economic Self-Interest, the Quest for More Money, somehow inherently less noble than Political Self-Interest, the Quest for More Political Power? Business owners now are a lot more moral and helpful to the world than your thought-policing Commissars would be."

"Nonsense! If everypony in Equestria shared their wealth, we'd have no need for businesses or workers or anything!"

"Really? No businesses, no jobs, no workers, not even any farmers? Yep, that sounds like a typical Marksist heckhole of a country, an awful Failed State full of poverty and food shortages, right there."

"Marksist?" Glimmer asked.

"Yes, Marksist. You know, the name of the ideology you keep calling Equalism. I've known ponies who called it Communialism, Communism, Togetherism, Fascism, Leoninism, Stallism, and Trotskiism, but they're really just the same thing. A fundamentally flawed vision of utopia and togetherness and other good words make up the carrot, an all-powerful government to make up the stick, and a list of demands and rules to force upon the rules. Bad ponies get the stick. You think Harmonism and Free Market Capitalism are bad because you compare them to imaginary, impossible systems of government. And you think you're doing the right thing because you think, one day, you'll create a world with unlimited carrots for all. But tell me, who farms in your Cutie Markless society of Marksism?"

"The volunteer workers whose turn it is to farm."

Silver hammed it up, confusion clear on his face. "The Volunteer workers... whose turn it is to farm? You don't see a contradiction there?"

"Let me be clear, ponies can volunteer to temporarily work for the good of all ponies whenever they want, but they'll have turns to farm, turns to bake food, and turns to build houses."

"Oh, you rotate labour, like a bunch of roommates sharing chores. That sounds good on paper, but it doesn't work large-scale at all, especially not when you have more lazy roommates than non-lazy ones. What happens when it's the turn of lazy, unfit, incompetent, or unhygienic ponies to farm, or attempt any other form of hard labour? What happens when it's the turn of clumsy ponies to sew? And what happens when EVERYPONY decides to stop working solely for the benefit of lazy non-workers?"

"I... uh... Nopony's going to do that!"

"Yes, they are. It's happened in Equalist countries before, and let me tell you, it'll happen again. Every Equalist supports free lunches because every Equalist thinks they'll be the ones getting free lunches, not the ones making them. It's why life sucks so much for under-paid, barely-paid, and entirely-unpaid workers in Equalist countries. Quick, anypony in this crowd, tell me, if you had the option, would you quit your job and move to some terrible town so you can spend the rest of your life performing hard labour, so the fruits of your labour will be 'Redistributed' to the benefit of the snootiest, stupidest, most high-nosed lazy jerks from Canterlot?"

"No!" Many ponies in the crowd shouted.

"Thank you," Silver said, turning back to Glimmer. "But tell me, the farm tools, how do you get those?"

"They're owned by everyone! We all share them."

"Publically-owned farming tools? What happens when you need one, but someone else is using it? And what happens when you need one, but someone who borrowed it broke it and didn't feel like telling anypony because that would mean taking personal responsibility, something your society encourages through punishing workers for working and rewarding non-workers with free meals?"

"Nopony will break the farm tools!" Glimmer insisted.

"On purpose. But what happens when some Equalist idiot breaks the farm tools?"

"We fix it, or make new ones!"

"With what? You won't exactly have a booming steel industry, and a cashless society can't exactly buy it from some Frontier town's skilled and experienced Cutie Mark-bearing Blacksmith!"

"Well, maybe our Equalist country won't HAVE to be cashless!"

"It might as well be, with how little your Equalist-Bits will be worth to the rest of the world," Silver noted. "By the way, what happens when somepony's toilets need unclogging?"

"A member of our volunteer worker force unclogs that toilet."

"What happens if he doesn't want to unclog that toilet? What if he thinks the owner of the toilet should unclog it, but the owner of the toilet thinks the worker should unclog it, and they both refuse to touch the thing until the situation is magically resolved for them?"

"Well, I'll fix it myself."

Ah, Personal Responsibility, good. But what are you going to do when you run a country and this happens in a different town every few weeks, are you going to go from door to door, cleaning gutters and unclogging toilets and performing all the jobs nopony wants to volunteer to do?

She groaned in exhaustion. "Could you stop over-analyzing everything?"

"Stop over- _Stop over-analyzing the ideology you want to force on everypony?!_ " Silver snapped.

"I don't want to force Equalism onto everypony!" Glimmer insisted. "...Any more!"

"Then why don't Equalist towns and Equalist countries let their ponies leave? Or think freely and consider leaving? Or talk freely to others and perhaps convince their friends to leave with them?" Silver asked. "Oh, that's right, because if the workers go, there isn't anypony left to work for the benefit of the non-workers. The wages of the workers and the fruits of their labour get taken away by the state and 'Re-distributed' into the pockets of those who didn't earn it and don't deserve it, and when they stop producing, there's nothing to redistribute. Your ideology wants to create a utopia for you and a dystopia for those you deem beneath you, where a whole caste of your society will voluntarily enslave themselves for your benefit, working hard on the farms so they can spend their free time feeding you the grapes they grew. And the second workers get tired of this, either you force them to go back to their slave labour, or you and everypony else starves. I don't want to live in a society where that could happen to me, or my friends, or their friends, or anypony else. Even if you offered me a spot in your country's government, where I could do whatever I wanted to Equalist idiots who aren't allowed to complain about the government or anypony who works for it, I still wouldn't want that. Even if I'd never have to work another day in my life, and even the job came with all kinds of nice perks, I still wouldn't want that. I wouldn't wish life in a country like that on my worst enemy."

He leaned to the side, and purred to a friendly green mare in the audience he didn't recognize, "And if you knew what I'd done to my worst enemies, you'd realize what a statement that is."

She blinked in surprise.

And as if he didn't just do that, he continued to talk. "I don't care if it's at the top or at the bottom or anywhere in-between, I don't want to live in a society that'll violently and spectacularly collapse the second enough farmers realize how bad Equalism has made their life. Your whole ideology... It's like sneaking into the Apple Family's home, eating all their food, and when you get caught, saying that if they don't farm more food for you soon, everypony on the farm starves. And when the cops show up to arrest you for thievery, you claim it's alright because the Apple Family oppress you by refusing to share their apples with you for free."

"But... Rich ponies do the same thing through taxes!"

"That's how you think taxes work?" Silver asked in open surprise. "Wow, they really need to teach better economics lessons in schools. Here's how taxes work: A farmer farms, a dressmaker makes and sells dresses, and a bookseller sells books he bought from publishers, who bought manuscripts from writers, who bought and ate food while they were writing. Every business-owner in Equestria sends a small fraction of the money they make to their local governments. Mayor Mare, in this town's case, and she spends it where it's needed most. A new roof for Town Hall? New books for the town's school? New roads, and the maintenance of existing roads? Perhaps, even subsidizing local farms, should this be necessary! She decides where the money goes, because she's closer to the ponies here than Celestia. Speaking of Celestia, Mayor Mare then keeps most of that tax money around for emergencies and throws a fraction of that tax money to Celestia, who collects these fractions of taxes from towns and cities all over Equestria. Celestia then spends it on funding Equestria's infrastructure, country-wide education standards, and military. She also presides over Equestria as the absolute ruling authority, and while she grants local authorities autonomy, she also keeps them in line. Now, to cut costs for the regular townsponies of Equestria, she's shrunken her country's military force into what you'll see in Canterlot, her practically-ceremonial Royal Guardsponies. Because, in the event of any real disaster, random ponies with good magic and the power of friendship can save the day, and in the event of war, she can always remilitarize the country and train up some magic-sword-carrying magic-armour-clad warriors to defend Equestria and allow its ponies to farm and cook and sew in peace, their taxes funding the soldiers as they fight for everypony's futures and continued safeties."

"And what about the rich ponies who steal from us?" Glimmer asked.

"Name some. Name some rich ponies who oppress you, and I'll take care of them. Because I've read equalist books, and it sounds like the 'Oppressive' thing about rich ponies you hate most is that you can't be them under Harmonism, or Free Market Capitalism, or any other form of government that isn't Equalist."

Glimmer remembered something she wished she brought up earlier in the conversation. "What about that thing where some rich 'Noble' ponies get paid just for being high-society fancy idiots?"

"They're the descendants of ponies who died to save Equestria during its darkest hours, it's a government scheme Celestia set up a few thousand years ago to make sure the families left behind are looked after properly. If Harmonism was as inherently bad as you say it is, politicians wouldn't be trying to get rid of that system, so they can be haggled down to imposing a generational limit in addition to its recently-added child cap!"

"Child cap?" Mrs Cake repeated in confusion. That certainly didn't sound nice.

Silver had almost forgotten other ponies were in the party barn with him. "Soft child cap. You only get paid regularly for the first fancy noble foal a fancy noble couple has. You can still have other foals, you just don't get free money for them every month."

Well, that sounded better. That's what many ponies around the room seemed to think.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Glimmer shouted, her rage overtaking her as she lit up her horn and removed the truth spell. "Who cares if the money goes to the foals of dead heroes? It also DOESN'T go to EVERYPONY, which makes it unfair!"

Silver paused for a moment, and took in a deep breath. And then, he sighed. "You think things are better your way, aren't they?" He asked.

"Yes!" Glimmer insisted.

"Two thousand, two hundred and seventy six. Your way is better than the pony way, is it?"

"Yes, also, what are you doing?"

"One thousand, five hundred, and seventeen. This might sound strange, but after you beat down as many unrepentant and incurably evil villains as me, you start to hear the same bad, fallacious justifications for evil actions over, and over, and over again... And, you start to hear the same ways to gloat about being evil over, and over and over again... So, I decided to make a little game out of it. I count how many times I hear a certain fragment of a villainous mindset announced, such as 'Others cannot be trusted to make the right choices, so I had to choose for them!', or 'I had to do it, because only I can do it! I am blameless because I was chosen by fate!', or 'But this is the only solution to the problem at hoof I can think of!'. After all, villains aren't particularly unique or interesting."

He'd called her a villain before, but this time, something about it made her even madder. Maybe it was how he looked down on her like she was just another mad dog, another wannabe tinpot tyrant who needed to go down. NOPONY looked down on her! "Are you saying I'm a villain?!" Glimmer demanded furiously.

"I'm saying you're a really boring villain. I mean, really, come on. Look at you. Put all the supposedly-reformed friend-backstabbing evilly-gloating stuff aside for a moment and look at you. You aren't some brilliant free-thinking visionary. You aren't some overly-idealistic, tragically deluded wannabe-hero. You're just another run-of-the-mill god-wannabe who wishes she could change the world to better fit her vision of what reality should be. Just another idiot too dumb to see anything wrong with her own idea of a perfect world, and too much of a jerk to consider taking advice from somepony who knows more than you. At the end of the day, putting aside the power you stole from those you lied to and Dusted... You're just another Marxist."

"Oh? And what are you? Some out-of-touch rich billionaire, hoarding all the world's money and resources to himself?"

Silver burst into laughter. "Again, you say billionaire as if it's a bad thing! My parents farmed dirt. And I studied hard at home, because no school was willing to train me as hard as I was willing to work. I have created over seventy five thousand jobs in my lifetime! I run the largest Magitech company in the world, and we're releasing a new type of Extreme Gear this fall. I revolutionized the shipping industry not long ago, with my Extreme Gears! I've improved the lives of countless ponies across Equestria, and do you have any idea how many criminals I've brought down in this world's Canterlot, and in countless others? I would assume that I've saved more ponies in my lifetime than you've killed in one day during your stint as a timeline-ruining bitter harpy who's just mad because Twilight dethroned you and freed your slaves... but I don't know, because I don't think anypony knows for certain how many ponies died in the timeline where Equestria was forced to war with the enslaved Crystal Ponies of a Sombra-dominated Crystal Empire, or the timeline where Changelings enslaved more than 99% of ponykind, let alone the timeline where all life on the planet was wiped away by Celestia's sun in her final act of mercy to a world you destroyed, or any other timeline! What have I done? I've made Equestria greater, what have YOU done? I'll tell you what you've done, you've outdone Tirek! You've outdone Sombra! You enslaved ponies on a level even Chrysalis couldn't, and when Twilight freed your slaves, you killed more ponies in one day than a whole species of parasitic insects put together could over the past decade! You made world of darkness and chaos and suffering after world of darkness and chaos and suffering so well, Discord is probably impressed! Or disgusted, I don't know, I haven't met the guy."

"He... Never brought it up." She said.

"What, did he not want to make Fluttershy mad by bringing up how you reacted worse to having a friend move away than he reacted to spending a thousand years trapped in stone?" Silver asked.

"Would you shut up about me?" Glimmer snapped. "What's important is that Equalism secures Equality for all!"

You'd think it would, but it doesn't.

"Yes, it does! Equalism stops big ponies at the top from exploiting little ponies at the bottom!" She insisted.

Silver sighed. Stupid Equalists... "Heirarchies don't naturally make those at the top hurt or oppress those at the bottom. Corrupt jerks who choose to hurt and oppress those beneath them are exactly that: Corrupt individuals who CHOOSE to be jerks. Pretending it's a flaw inherent in the system means pretending their jerkness isn't their fault, but is instead the fault of freedom itself. And that's wrong, because they're jerks, and you should resent them for that, instead of making excuses for them and blaming their actions on personal freedoms you want removed, like the right to think differently and speak freely and question ideas. Dominance heirarchies are a part of life. Even in the Elements of Harmony, there is inequality! And do you know what? That inequality doesn't matter, thanks to Harmony. They don't treat each other differently based on who's more useful to the team than who. And when it's time to fire some rainbow lasers, they all do their part. As for the rest of the world... Sure, in any system where living beings are given the freedom of choice, some will choose to be bad. And in any system where the rule of law is respected, there will be systems in place to safely and equinely detain, contain, and punish those who break that law, which should exist to secure the safeties and freedoms of the system's ponies, not the peace of mind of some dumb propagandized losers who'll never grow or think or learn or evolve because they'll never have their dumb ideas challenged. The only bad thing about an efficient and functional system ruled by a benevolent and competent ruler is that those on bottom can't say they're on top."

"But with Equalism, nopony's on top!" Glimmer insisted.

"Except you," Silver noted. "And the Soldiers you'd need to defend your country in the event of a war with countries who want to liberate your enslaved people or simply steamroll your heckhole country and take its land. And the Enforcers you'd need running around and enforcing your will and your laws across the territory once your ideology expands beyond your ability to run it all personally. Oh, and the ponies who manage the guards, and make sure they follow the laws you created for them, to separate them from the common folk. Oh, and the ponies who manage those guards. Oh, and of course, all the ponies who manage the mandatory monthly redistribution of wealth. And you certainly can't forget the ponies who manage the creation of, and redistribution, of food, clothes, medicine, books, everything else you'll need produced en masse to feed and clothe a country. And every other pony who isn't forced to be a talentless and lifeless low-class worker-slave for life. They're on top, because they get to abuse their power and hurt ponies who aren't allowed to criticize the government or speak up about it, for fear of upsetting Marksist losers like their neighbours and you. They're lower than you, but higher than the layabouts who do nothing and get fed just for living in an Equalist society. And they're higher than the worker-slaves, who have no rights, no freedoms, and are not even allowed to keep what they farm or trade it before it's snatched away from them and given to the higher-class layabouts who didn't earn it or contribute to it in any way. Sure, freedom might let some ponies choose to be bad, and then get judged and punished for it, just like freedom lets ponies choose to be good and then be rewarded by pony society for it. But a system that removes the freedom of choice is inherently bad."

"Why?" She asked.

"Because free will is good."

"Why?" She asked.

His hoof met his face. "Well, you heard it here first, folks. Starlight Glimmer doesn't know why free will is good. And as she said before, she thinks it should be stepped on and restricted, because according to her beliefs, where there is free will, there is the potential for ponies to choose to be evil, so free will is evil."

The crowd booed her. Trixie opened her mouth to defend her, but a well-thrown rotten tomato thrown by an orange-maned azure-blue Unicorn filled her mouth and sent her into a choking fit.

"Look, Glimmyglam, I get that you have good intentions," Silver explained as he wrapped a hoof around her back and punchably closed his eyes while leaning closer to her. "But the ideology you want the world to follow just doesn't work. If you write it down, some say it can work, some say it won't, but when you try it out, you don't get results. Or, to be more precise, you don't get the results you want. So you try again, and you aren't the only Equalist I've seen this behavior in, believe me. I've been to alternate worlds, I've overthrown dictators, and you would not believe how many of those dictators rose to power using Equalism. Some genuinely believed they were doing the right thing, some were just using the ideology and the idiots who think it can work, but the end result was always the same: Corruption and incompetence at the top, and an equal share of suffering and powerlessness at the bottom. Every time, it failed. It failed every time. And every time it failed, a few years later, ponies start wondering if maybe, it could work if they tried again. Some tried variations on your ideology, some took power and then turned everypony who didn't like Equalism into fruit. Some jerks threw everypony who didn't like Equalism in special extra-terrible jails called Gulags, where propaganda was shouted at trapped ponies by magical record players. One jerk took power, using Equalism. And then he threw everypony who didn't like Equalism into Gulags. And then, a few years later, he threw everypony who helped him take power into Gulags, leaving behind foals, which he lied to. He told them the world had always been Equalist and could only ever be equalist, he told them he had absolute power no living being could question, he told them he worked so hard for his country that he burned off incredible amounts of energy, meaning he never had to poop, he told everypony he could read minds and smell disloyalty, he even told everypony a giant monster would awaken and consume the world if the new Equalist peasants ever rose up against him and 'Reduced the amount of Equality in the world'. His power base was unquestionable. He even had this thing called an 'Intelligencariat', an artificially-created Upper Class made out of supposed intellectuals who were paid – through extra meals, as this was a cashless society where food became the new cash - to sit around and pretend to think all day. The argument for that thing, was that these ponies would think of new technologies if they were paid to do so, but the thing is, they didn't have good ideas, because they didn't have to. And the thinkers were afraid of being seen thinking non-government-approved thoughts, so they gave stupid, but safe answers whenever they were asked what they were thinking about. They'd say they were thinking of ways to make this or that better, but they weren't really. And why would they? It wasn't as if they'd be rewarded for thinking of good ideas and letting it be stolen by the ruler. And the ruler said no to most of the actual ideas the ponies had, anyway. Anyway, moving on to the rest of his government, the guards were once ponies, but he used magical helmets to turn them into unthinking, unfeeling golems with no free will and no desire to abuse their power while carrying out orders to abuse the populace. He ate like a king, and his thugs and goons ate pretty well, too. And yet, he still failed to feed his ponies and uphold the values his ideology said it could give the world, until eventually, even under the threat of the ultimate giant monster attack, ponies freaked out. Some broke into zoos and ate the food of animals, some magicked the animals into food and ate them, some gave that treatment to each other, some magicked themselves so they could exist on a diet of nothing but snow and other liquids, and some overthrew the Equalist government and its evil dictator ruler and ate his food. The whole place descended into anarchy... No, it **ascended** into anarchy, because even anarchy isn't as awful as Equalism. It took MONTHS for me to get the place safe, civilized, fed, functional, and free again. Well, I say months, but what I mean is, it took me months of work before I could get the country into a state that was good enough for me to feel alright about giving control of the situation to somepony else. What do you say to that?"

"Well, if the jerk threw Equalists into jail, it wasn't real Equalism." Glimmer decided, and Trixie finally spat out the rotten apple caught in her throat. "After all, Equalism is about equality, not throwing ponies into jail."

"Oh, yeah? Then what do you do with the thieves?" Silver asked doubtfully.

"There won't be any thieves under Equalism, because nopony will need to steal." She insisted.

"Uh... huh." Silver doubted audibly, and repeated in the same tone as before, "But what do you do with the thieves?"

She chuckled. "You can't steal property if everypony owns it."

"Water, air, land, forests, airspace... Believe me, it's possible. It used to belong to everypony, and then somepony takes it, because it becomes valuable, and it becomes worth taking, and using. But let's pretend you create that Equalist utopia you dream about at night. If nopony needs to steal, what do you do with the ponies who do anyway?"

"Rehabilitation!" She decided. "They'll be rehabilitated, like all criminals under Equalism."

Silver pretended to smile approvingly, and made a noise of understanding. "Hm, like you tried to rehabilitate Twilight and her friends?"

"Exactly!" Glimmer beamed, glad he finally seemed to be 'getting it'. Surely, his hatred of her and her Equalism came solely from a position of ignorance, and if she kept this up, she would eventually educate him on how good equalism REALLY was, and always would be. Then they could stop arguing, and become friends again! After he apologized for embarrassing her with this argument in public, of course.

Rainbow Dash's forehooves swiftly met her face, and her friends did the same, with one hoof each. Except for Fluttershy, who covered her eyes with her wings, no longer able to watch. And except for Twilight Sparkle, who wasn't there.

Ponies who'd heard about Twilight's adventures – That is to say, every pony present in the room – Booed Glimmer like she'd personally wronged each and every one of them. Cries of "Monster!" and "Thought-Policer!" sounded out, and Silver enjoyed them for a moment, and then made himself look good by gesturing for the booing to end.

"Boo, you stink!" Some stallion shouted out from in the crowd, a little late but certainly angry enough to make up for it.

"Glimmy, Glimmy, GlimmyGlimmyGlimmyGlimmy _Glimmy_ ," Silver began. "I get that you think Equalism can save the world, but it can't. What you want to do, and what all Equalists want to do, is take away a significant part of every pony. Their individuality, their identity, their ability, their capability to take pride in themselves and the good they do for the world, all so things will look equal to you. And that's bad. It's like pulling a pony's face off and replacing it with a mask. There are still individual ponies under those masks, and they'll eventually take the masks off unless they're shamed and brainwashed into keeping them on, by Equalist leaders. And then they'll still take the masks off around their close friends and family members, unless you convince them they can't trust anypony enough to take their masks off around them. A sense of individual identity is necessary in the development of a healthy and functioning growing pony, along with a sense of where you come from and where you're going. You can't take that away from ponies without hurting them. And that's so obvious, there are even some Equalist leaders who know that."

Glimmer was absolutely seething at this point. "What do you mean?" She asked through the clenched teeth of a fake smile.

"Well, some renamed minor variations of Equalism do this thing, this particularly annoying thing, where they encourage and enforce mindless obedience to the ideology's dogma, and then fulfill each member's repressed instinctive need for individuality by encouraging them to artificially emulate pre-approved design elements and fake personality traits to put on and exaggerate to give each member the illusion of being an individual cog in a greater machine..." He paused, and considered his audience. "I mean, some versions of Equalism – which have different names but are still Equalism when you take away all the fancy-shmancy double-talk and triple-talk - do this thing, this really annoying thing, where they encourage their followers to think the same and talk the same and act the same. And be the same. But life forms aren't meant to be the same, and if they were, evolution wouldn't exist. But, so Equalism's blind followers can still feel like they're still unique free-thinkers with their own opinions and views, and so Equalism's followers can feel like they're all cool individuals in a diverse group full of different people who all came together to fight for what they think MUST be right if so many different beings like it, the Equalism books and Equalism preachers say to act weird and dress up in stupid clothes and call themselves stupid things, so followers of Equalism can pretend they're cool smart individuals who all agree with each other, and not just interchangeable, mindless and soulless drops of rain in a flood, or falling snowflakes in an avalanche, ruining things for everypony else."

"But... But they're just changed versions of Equalism, not the real thing!" Glimmer insisted.

"Those who made these changed versions saw faults not with the Equalist ideology, but with its methodology, and changed their dogma to be more palatable. It's still Equalism, it just offers slightly different lies and speaks in a way that sounds more appealing. It's still a faulty ideology preached by liars and spread by cultists who want power and slaves, no matter the cost. Tell me, have you seen Equalist clubs in Manehattan, where Equalists like yourself compete to see who can be 'The Most' Equalist? Bullying and harassing each other and excluding each other for the slightest of imagined infractions against Equalism, all to cultivate an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty to force each other to keep believing, and keep being SEEN believing. They bully each other for not seeming to believe in Equalism enough, because nothing is ever Equal ENOUGH for these lunatics. I'm going to go there soon, and I'm going to tell them why Equalism doesn't work. I will talk them out of the confused loops of circular logic they have talked each other into, and I will set their minds free of the Equalist bear-trap that's clamped down on their brain, and yours. I will cure them of this illness."

Glimmer gaped. "You can't say that! You can't just call ideologies illnesses!"

Why not? The Equalism pathogen makes ponies unable to think clearly and function as healthy adult ponies. It turns ponies so crazy, they end up thinking it's perfectly justifiable to attack somepony they perceive as one who stands in the way of Equalism. They end up thinking it's perfectly justifiable to attack that one, or ruin that one's life, or even travel through time to ruin that one's life before it really began, ruining the world for everypony in the process. Look, Glimmy, that shrivelled ball of hate you call a heart is ALMOST in the right place, but your brain isn't. You need to get your brain out of your butt and back where it belongs: Your head. Use your head and realize how dumb this ideology is. I don't resent you for thinking your ideology can work out if you just work hard enough to force this anti-hard-work ideology onto the world, but it just doesn't work. It's like forcing a square metal bar into a round hole: You ruin the hole, because it doesn't fit, no matter how hard you wish it would.

"No," She said quietly. "NO!" She snapped furiously, starting to cry. "That's not true! It can work! I can make it work!"

"Let me guess: Every time Equalism didn't work, it's because it wasn't REAL equalism, right?" He sarcastically offered, punchably waggling his eyebrows.

"Right!" She agreed.

"And every time an Equalist government failed its people and the ideals it claimed to fight for and represent, the right ponies just weren't in charge, right?"

"Right!" She agreed harder.

"Of course the right ponies are never in charge of an Equalist government: They're Equalist!" Silver declared, and laughed. "Equalists make Donkeys look wishy-washy!"

Starlight Glimmer gasped. "You can't say that! That's offensive to Donkeys!"

Cranky Doodle Donkey spoke up. "I thought it was funny!"

"That's because it was!" Silver agreed, taking a small cobalt-blue rectangle of paper and throwing it to him. "Here, buy yourself something nice."

Cranky caught its corner in his mouth, rotated it up into his field of vision, and quietly read it aloud. "Silver Star's Sundries: 2 for 1 on Selected Items. Cheapest Item is free. Restrictions Apply."

"But really, think about it," Silver began. "To believe in Equalism, you have to be willing to ignore all the arguments against it, all the explanations on how it doesn't work, all the testimonials on how it doesn't work from Ponies and Griffons who've survived under it, and whatever tiny voice inside one's head is responsible for wondering if perhaps, one isn't really 'All That', and perhaps, as they say in the vernacular, one's farts really do stink. To believe in Equalism, you have to be willing to ignore all the bad your ideology does, plans on doing, dreams about doing, gloats about doing, and has done in the past. To believe in Equalism, you have to be utterly detached from reality, cause and effect, and the populace you want crushed under your hoof. You need to be willing to ignore objections from ponies who haven't yet lived under Equalism, ponies who survived it, the ghosts of ponies who didn't, and ponies who are surviving under it right now. You have to be absolutely certain that you know best, and only you and those who think exactly like you, are worth listening to. Those aren't exactly the qualities of a good leader. But how else could you fool yourself into thinking a fundamentally faulty government system could work if enough ponies were forced into it and enslaved by it? Idiot."

"I... I'm not an idiot! And I didn't enslave anypony!" She insisted, tears welling up in her eyes again.

"No, those ponies gave up their lives, Cutie Marks, dreams, and identity because they WANTED to," Silver chuckled as he looked around the room, his eyes silently asking everypony he looked as if they could believe this mare. "I'm sure your lying, cultish propaganda, and shaming tactics didn't affect their judgement in the slightest."

"Why are you acting like Harmonism is any better? Harmonism enslaves ponies, by making them work for a living!"

"Oh, really? Well, let's ask some hard workers in this town for their view on things." Silver decided.

Another Silver walked out from behind him. "You know, because you aren't one!" He declared.

"I think everypony got that, but thanks anyway," Silver said, hoof-bumping the copy of himself and dismissing it in a puff of wispy blue smoke. "Hey, Applejack!" The remaining Silver shouted suddenly.

Her muffled voice called from somewhere in the crowd. "Eeyup?" She asked as ponies moved aside to give her a clear view of Silver, and give everypony else a clear view of her.

"You farm a lot, right?" He asked.

"Eeyup," She said, not sure where this was going.

"It's hard work, isn't it?" He asked.

She figured out where this was going. "Eeyup," She agreed with a warm smile, ready to say some nice-sounding stuff about the importance of hard work, how great your muscles felt after a day of honest work, and how even though the sun was a bit too hot sometimes, and even though her hooves and hips ached after a long day at the farm, it was worth it because she was feeding her family, feeding the world, and helping the beautiful country of Equestria in her own important way.

"If you could get away with it, would you trot over to some school for young foals, make up a fake cultish political ideology called Foodism on the way there, and preach it to them while calling Harmony evil and Foodism good, to trick everypony who'll listen to you and trust you into giving up their goals and dreams while giving you all their money and clothes and everything else they own, so they can move to your farm and wear ratty old rags and live there forever in return for free labour almost all day, every day?" Silver asked. "Would you then bully Foodists into remaining on your farm and continuing to work, while making books full of lies that call Foodism the best ideology ever, while encouraging readers of these books to force their local governments to become Foodist-controlled giant farms where Foodists farm and non-farmers and non-Foodists are thrown in jail and all you have to do is supervise your Foodists and eat the literal fruits of their labour for free?"

That wasn't even remotely where Applejack thought that was going! She was absolutely disgusted by the thought, as were many others in the room. "Nnnope!"

Good, because that makes you a better pony than Coal Marks, the bitter, lying founder of Communialism, a movement that would go on to rename itself Marks-ism, Socialism, and, eventually, yes, Equalism. It changed its name and nothing else, nothing that truly matters, because it's fundamentally a faulty solution to a problem Coal Marks imagined up and exaggerated for the sake of propaganda and scaremongering, a problem Ponykind already solved on its own Millennia ago. Marksism refuses to admit this to itself and the world because if ponies realize Marks-ism doesn't work, has never worked, and can never work, they won't want to put Mark-ists in positions of power. And if Mark-ists don't get positions of power, they can't abuse their power to force Marks-ism onto others.

The black spots on Glimmer's horn and right flank faded away into nothingness, because this debate was pretty much over, so the need to keep Glimmer from doing anything stupid had passed. That's what Silver thought, anyway.

Glimmer looked up at her horn, and back at her flank. And then, Silver Star spoke.

"Honestly," The Unicorn said as if it was obvious, as he lined up the final blow and prepared to strike. "You keep saying hierarchies are unnatural fake social constructs, but hierarchies can be seen in all natural societies across the world, across the multiverse, even in animals. Wolves, Monkeys, Rabbits... Even Lobsters have hierarchies."

She smirked, confident that she'd gotten him. "So you're saying we should organize our society along the lines of the lobsters?"

Silver closed his eyes, and smiled. The party grew quiet. The world grew quiet. Birds in mid-chirp paused, as did their natural predators in mid-pounce. The crackling flames of the sun continued, but grew quieter anyway. The air thickened with tension as Silver prepared for the roast to end all roasts. He was about to end this mare's whole criminal career!

"I'm saying even Lobsters are too smart to be Equalist," Silver remarked.

Screams of awe flooded the room, and Silver grinned victoriously as he found himself lifted up by crowds of cheering ponies as they collectively lost their marbles. Across the world, birds, cats, dogs, squirrels, rabbits, cats, dogs, howls and meows and screeches and rabbit noises could be heard worldwide. Underwater, dolphins, sharks, and sea monsters cheered, bubbles flying from their mouths to the surface, a bubble popping above the ocean blue every few seconds to unleash the sound of cheering sea life. Even the sun grew a temporary face, just so that it could scream.

Starlight Glimmer was horrified as a town full of ponies who had clearly still secretly resented her all along celebrated and hooted while he grinned and grinned and practically drank her tears.

Tears spilled from her eyes in thick and heavy streams, and she screamed.

A sickly green glow erupted from her horn and engulfed her whole body, and she flew at Silver, rocketing at him with enough force to break something as she prepared to charge right at him and all the ponies holding him up. He didn't seem mad now, so he was helpless!

He seemingly knew what she would do, and he didn't flinch. A corona of orange energy flared up around him and spread outwards, accelerating as it engulfed the barn and slowed everything. It felt like she was pushing through some kind of weird dough, something soft that grew tougher and harder to move through every second, and it caught her form before she could touch him. He casually glanced at her immobilized body, her horn, and back at her, savouring the shock and confusion. Her horn's magic felt like it was sucked away, in the way that heat gets sucked away by the touch of cold things, and though the light around her body went out, she didn't fall.

Nopony could move freely, except for him. Nopony could cast magic, except for him.

With a great deal of effort, he grinned, and through grit teeth, he spoke. "Twenty years," He tried to say, revealing that this spell also made it harder for him to move, it just affected him less. He hopped down from the ponies who'd lifted him up, landing on four legs. "It took you twenty years to create a spell that shouldn't exist because you were salty over your crush getting his life together and moving on from you. It took me two hours to perfect a spell that I felt like experimenting with because I was bored. Here, try this new buff."

A warm wave of empowering blue magic shot from his horn to her body and washed through it, though the pleasant tingle in her muscles was strangely offset by a tightening sensation in her core. "What did you just cast on me?" Glimmer demanded.

"Just a little something I've been working on." Silver shrugged casually, and then a wide grin broke out on his face as his eyes grew cold and his breathing grew deeper and slower. "Something to make this a little more _equal_."

The orange aura he'd unleashed faded away.

Glimmer opened her mouth, and a metal ball the size of a boulder shot up from the ground, striking Glimmer in the jaw, slamming her jaw shut on her tongue.

Rainbow Dash's eyes widened in shock. 'I didn't even see his horn glow!' She thought.

His front hooves swiped her front hooves out from under her as his leaping rear hoves sent him into a quick spin, landing on his forehooves and sending a quick right kick into her face while his tail gripped her neck and swung her around his body, working with the momentum and tossing her into the ground in front of him. Her body was spotless and completely unharmed, thanks to his spell, but the pain she felt was worse than anything she'd ever felt before.

His horn flashed, and a massive tornado of blue magic burst from his horn and spread out to keep the two separated from the rest of the party.

"You're a loser," Silver said to Glimmer.

And then, the blue tornado burst outwards in glittery blue sparks of Mind Magic, affecting everypony. The Mind spell that had once appeared to be the blue tornado was an illusion all along, it seemed, with a delayed effect for everyone that was looking at it when it went off. Everypony suddenly felt like watching the fight and cheering it on, even Fluttershy, who cheered the most brutally in her adorably soft voice.

A long, clawed limb of orange energy formed around Silvcr's right forehoof as he stood on his hind legs. He used it to grab her and throw her out of the barn, and he chased after her, running like a Fox.

She recovered and shot lasers from her horn, and with quick jumps to the left and right between each clawed hoof strike at the ground, he dodged each one. She might have been able to outshoot and outfly an amateur duellist or two, even an absurdly powerful one used to overpowering her foes when the chips were down, but Silver, he was used to facing stronger foes and taking them down anyway.

His horn flashed, and he suddenly teleported away in a flash of blue light.

Glimmer sensed a pony teleporting behind her, and she turned in time to see Silver standing there, a long sword in his mouth. "Nothing personal, filly," He muffled around the blade's handle.

She blasted a rock-drilling spell into his face, and the beam shot right through his illusionary head as she was struck in her rear with an apple-bucking kick. "Psych!" He announced playfully as she flew through the air like a football, and was caught by another leaping Silver and held upside down as he descended. He brutally slammed her into the ground, head-first, and vanished in a puff of blue smoke.

"Pull!" Silver called out.

Another Silver punched the ground, launching a clawed fox paw of orange momentum energy from the ground beneath her, a giant palm strike that launched Glimmer into the air, where she was struck in the back by a cannonball, and sent flying.

A tree sprung up from the ground in under a second, and she crashed into it face-first, collapsing. She slowly started to get up, and Silver leapt out from the foliage, on his side, landing on her and slamming the horse-elbow of his right forehoof into her with all of his body's weight behind it. She screamed, and another Silver, a standing one, summoned another cannonball into his hooves and threw it like a basketballer aiming for the net. The cannonball arced gracefully through the air and landed on the back of her head, slamming it into the dirt, muffling her screams.

When the cannonball vanished in a puff of blue smoke, she pulled her head from the ground, miserably spitting dirt and grass in disgust.

"Point," Silver chuckled, waiting for her to get back up. "I have to say, that spell of mine, the one that converts almost all physical damage to mental and emotional damage, it's pretty great. I love not having to hold back! Well, I guess I'm holding back, in the sense that I'm not kicking you into a portal that'll spit you out into space, thanks to a portal I set up on something I physically threw there, but hey, I'm not holding back physically.

As soon as she'd gotten back onto her hooves, he flipped through the air and landed on her head, on two hooves, his forehooves stuck out to the sides. He got off her, summoned a metal table, and slammed her through it face-first, breaking it in two. And then he summoned a ladder, and a table, slamming both down onto her horn hard enough to dent both. 典he best part is, no matter how hard I hurt you, it'll never be enough! You'll always deserve worse. Oh, the things I could do to you... Do you think, when Twilight comes back, she'll question it when I tell her you went on a journey to find yourself? Do you think anypony in town will question it when I sell a new cow to some farmer on the other side of Equestria? Or, perhaps, I'll turn you into a Parasprite. Those things only live for a week, you know. Or I could turn you into chocolate, and eat you.

He punched the ground, and his enchanted hooves sent her sliding across the ground, scraping her face through the dirt. "Then again," He chuckled, "Maybe not. Now get up, I didn't hurt you that bad."

"You dragged me through the dirt!" Glimmer snapped, getting up, perfectly unharmed.

"See?" He asked, and punched her in the face. "Come on, your ideology supports the idea of harsh punishment for thoughtcriminals, people who commit supposed criminal-level acts when it comes to thinking the wrong thing or not loving the right thing. Just admit your ideology is wrong and you were wrong, and the beating will stop."

"Never!" Glimmer spat defiantly.

"You're such a loser," Silver said in disgust. "You buy into your loser ideology because you think it's the world's responsibility to coddle your feelings and let you do things that make you feel better about yourself. You want to make thinking you're a loser illegal, and that just makes you a bigger loser."

"I want to help ponies!" Glimmer snapped like a rabid animal, getting up and firing a sweeping laser beam at Silver, which he dodged by floating upwards, his hooves glowing orange as he straightened his body.

He flipped over in the air, and suddenly rocketed towards her, rear hooves-first, striking her in the face. "Dive kick!" He shouted, and the moment of impact made him bounce back a little. It also sent her flying like a stone skipping across the surface of a big lake, rolling head over heels and getting hurt worse every time.

Huffing and puffing, she got up, her horn lighting up with a sickly green glow.

Silver reared up onto his rear legs, and folded his forelimbs while staring down at her.

"What are you doing?" Glimmer asked.

"You'll see." Silver said, launching a blue bolt of magic from his horn into the air, where it split apart into a rain of sparking blue arrows that slightly homed in on their target. She ran to the side to dodge, and he teleported to where he predicted she'd be, slamming a hoof into the side of her jaw and sending her stumbling back into the rain. Each electric arrow sunk into her body with a painful zap, and she screamed, collapsing.

She got back up, flew into the air, and violently swung her head down, launching a brutal spinning drill laser at his face.

He didn't try to dodge. Instead, with a loud 'BLIP!', he formed a blue hexagonal shield that bounced the laser right back at her, where it struck her horn and made her scream. A smoky green trail was left leaking from her horn, and tears started to well up in her eyes.

"I can't believe an idiot like you managed to fight Twilight Sparkle to a standstill!" Silver chuckled, trotting over to her, grabbing her with a clawed paw of orange energy and throwing her into the air. And despite his apparent cockiness, he was sure to keep a close watch on her. Glimmer was certainly a magically powerful foe, and if he played fair, and played her little game of firing lasers and taking turns dodging them, she'd get a lucky hit sooner or later, which meant it was his goal to keep her off-balance. HE decided what game they were playing, HE dictated the pace of the fight, and HE decided who would win. "Was she holding back, for fear of hurting you? She had to be, that's the only way she could have trouble giving a shallow thug like you what you deserve."

Silver casually walked beneath her falling form and, waiting for the right moment, he jabbed his glowing horn up at her, a powerful short-range electromagical current rushing through her body as she screamed and flailed, jolting her back into the air. This time, when she arced back down, she landed in a beaten and battered heap of limbs.

Not even giving her the chance to get back up, Silver teleported Starlight Glimmer twenty feet into the air and watched her fall towards the ground. When her horn started sparking, trying to get a proper light going, he used an Earth Wall spell to bring up a three-foot-tall earthen block to strike her falling form in the ribs, knocking the wind out of her and getting rid of her pesky magic.

"Get up!" Silver shouted. "Get back up, monster! Don't you want to see my final form? Don't you want to experience the power I worked hard for?"

Glimmer shakily got back up and slowly a green shield around herself, her unsteady, abused horn squirting out green sparks and glowing, sizzling green liquid. "I wanted Equality! I wanted to help ponies!"

Smirking, Silver slid up to her and formed his blue hexagonal shield before dismissing it again and again, each loud 'BLIP!' like a hoofstep in a stampede that trampled over her will, body, mind, and soul. "You wanted the whole world to be 'Equal', alright. Equally beneath your hoof!" Silver yelled in disgust over the sound of his shield's own 'BLIP!'ing.

The pressure this rapid shield attack put on Glimmer's mind and body was intense, and she got the feeling that if she let the shield drop, even for a second, an even worse pain would be in store for her. "You can't understand-" She tearfully shouted.

"I understand everything," Silver said, tearing a hole in her weakened shield with a laser from his horn, leaping through the hole to shut her jaws with an uppercut that cancelled her spell. While she was stunned, he gripped her horn with a crab-like claw of orange energy that formed at the end of his hoof, clamping down hard. She screamed and even though the spell he'd cast on her transferring bodily damage to her mind and emotions, cracks started to form on her horn. Green, glowing cracks. He could have shattered it, and it would have taken six whole months to regrow properly, but he decided to use her horn as a handle and throw her to the ground.

"Nah," He decided, walking away.

"What... You aren't going to finish the job?" Glimmer growled. "I thought you said I was evil! Where's that bravado? Where's that wannabe heroism? What, are you just gonna walk away from this, you coward?"

Silver took twenty steps away, and looked off into the distance.

"You know, something's been bugging me," Silver admitted to himself, as a magical copy of himself teleported to his side.

"How much this pony's been allowed to get away with by an idealistic amateur with good intentions and an overwhelming desire to not admit to Celestia that she can't save this pony, even though learning not every life can be saved is the hardest lesson you can learn?" The second Silver asked, and two Silvers appeared behind him, one with an orange baseball bat coated in blue flames.

"Besides that," The first Silver said as a copy appeared on his other side, armed with a big blue sword topped with serrated orange edges. "In every alternate timeline Glimmer's evil actions created, things got worse and worse as the residual but ever-increasing evil of the new timeline's creator sent Equestria into downwards spiral after downwards spiral... But at no point did Twilight ever encounter a timeline in which Glimmer won!"

"Perhaps it's because her ideology is flawed, regressive, cruel, and stupid?" Silver wondered.

"Ah, but it tells anypony who'll listen it's only being cruel to be kind!" Silver noted mockingly.

"Indeed, and it tells its followers they can't be trusted with rights or freedoms." Silver reminded him.

"It would seem followers of this ideology certainly can't!" Silver chuckled, horn flashing blue as he formed ten copies of himself. "Give them the right to free speech, and they'll order you to take it away from them!"

"Perhaps that's why they consider having your rights removed something you should love your Equalist leader for!" Silver offered, as more and more clones started to teleport themselves in, until a whole army of Silvers a hundred strong surrounded Glimmer.

Some Silvers let out a furious combined yell, rushing at Glimmer and delivering kicks and magical lasers and arcing magical blasts into her curled-up body. Those who couldn't get close enough to see her cast spells and hexes and curses to weaken this monster more.

And despite how many Silvers attacked, there were still more left around Glimmer to watch her suffer, and talk to each other while it happened.

"Perhaps that's why Equalist leaders promote Equalism: They want to be loved and granted absolute power over their idiot wannabe-peasant fans." Silver suggested.

"And perhaps that's why Equalist fans love it so much: They want the right to make their own decisions, and the responsibility to make good decisions, taken away from them by an unquestionable monarch," Silver concluded.

"Monarch? If a King or Queen tried to commit even half of the atrocities Equalist and Marksist governments have given their worlds, it'd be curtains for the whole royal family!" Silver chuckled.

"Perhaps that's because with Monarchy, all of a country's woes can be blamed on a singular all-powerful entity you can rebel against. And with Capitalism and Harmonism, a country's problems can be blamed on politicians you can oppose and ideas you can freely argue against without fear of punishment. But with Equalism, the problems truly are inherent within the system. You can fix a few of the worst things wrong with Equalism, to make it work as intended: A lie the corrupt use to take power and keep it. But you can't make this broken ideology good, and its supporters have no real interest in trying. Equalism says Equalism is good and pure, according to Equalism. Equalism says those who don't love Equalism are on the wrong side of history, according to Equalism."

Another Silver chuckled. "The wrong side according to who?"

"Equalists, and only Equalists. Which is why Equalists hate non-Equalists so much, and why they often try to take over schools, where they can teach impressionable foals to think on the 'Right' side of Equalism, so the foals won't get on its bad side. Isn't it arrogant that they all think they'll be the only ones ruling the world in the future, deciding for the world what is and isn't allowed to be said and thought, writing new history books while burning the old, grinding all life beneath their hooves while calling their new world perfect?"

"Hey, if they weren't arrogant jerks, they wouldn't believe in an ideology that says all sentient life forms are worthless idiots who can only live peacefully without exploiting each other if an all-powerful Equalist ruler takes charge and handles the exploitation duties for them. What losers."

"Loser," One Silver paused in mid-kick to chuckle, before continuing to kick Glimmer, harder.

"Loser!" Another Silver enthusiastically agreed, filling the mare with deadly golden lightning that sent her body twitching.

"Loser! Loser! Loser!" They chanted together, beating her down even harder.

And then, one Silver grabbed Glimmer and tossed her into the air, and the rest lit up with orange flames of raw momentum, flying through the air and spiralling beautifully around her like swarms of orange butterflies, before turning violent and drilling into her from the top and bottom, each clone bursting on impact into clouds of blue smoke after it delivered its velocity into her body with punches hard enough to hurt and detonate themselves. "SILVER STAR TEN-K ARMAGEDDON!" The crowd roared.

It was a violent move that could be seen for miles around, colossal twin orange twisters violently crashing into a single point.

When Silver seemingly ran out of clones willing to fly, the twisters dispersed, letting the bruised and battered Starlight Glimmer fall to the ground.

"Are you ready to give up on your evil ideology yet?" Silver asked.

"Never!" Glimmer shouted.

"Shame," Silver said cheerfully, horn lighting up, a metal wall forming behind her and spiking its foundations into the ground, and he turned around and bucked his rear hooves into her like she was an apple tree and it was time to harvest. She sailed through the air, into the metal wall, and created a starlight-shaped impression on it, almost like she'd stuck her face and body into clay that was about to be baked.

Starlight Glimmer fell from the wall to the ground, and Silver looked down at the defeated Unicorn before him, circling her like a shark. "So, do you feel like

Her eyes snapped open, burning with rage.

"That is IT!" Starlight shouted, her horn glowing.

And then the metal wall behind her slammed down on her.

She screamed and magically obliterated the metal wall, and he dismissed it in a flash of blue magic before its scattered steel shards could hurt anypony.

"That is IT!" Starlight shouted, her horn glowing. Her mind went through the list of combat spells she knew, but only one seemed like it was enough to end this. She beat herself up often enough - once every few months or so, and thinking about what she'd done any more than that seemed pointless - so she didn't need some rich jerk from Canterlot doing it for her! Her horn lit up with a sickly greenish glow, she put down her head, she spread her hooves, she grit her teeth, and she fired the spell that would strip him of his Cutie Mark.

Silver's horn flashed, and the ground beneath Starlight's hooves rotated suddenly, the end of her beam fizzling as she lost her focus.

"Oh no, one-directional highly-telegraphed beam spells, my one weakness." Silver snarked sarcastically, using an earth spell to send a head-sized chunk of the ground off to her right flying right into her face like a strong hook, the impact turning the earth to dust and knocking her head away, following it up with a second earth strike that knocked it back toward him, and the earth beneath her head moved out of the way for a flying chunk of deep-earth rock to strike her in the jaw, sending her body flying into the air like a ragdoll.

"You don't think the world knows about you getting your crimes pardoned by its newest and most inexperienced leader? You think it's just ponies obsessing over the past? They're disgusted by what you've done. They're disgusted by what you ARE, Glimmer!" Silver shouted up to her as he followed the spiralling, sprawling, screaming pony's inelegant path back to earth. "The ponies that hate you have good reasons for hating you, and the ponies that like you... Well, either they see something within you that isn't there, or they can relate to sucking half as much as you do. Or, perhaps, they wish they, too, could be forgiven as often as you. I don't know, I'm not really an expert on psychology."

When she landed on the ground, she seemed quieter, and weaker, and less bitter. "I'm making up for what I've done!" She sobbed.

"Oh, you're making up for your crimes?" Silver asked, amused, and then he snapped. "HOW?!" He roared. "What are you doing to make up for everything you've done? Do you hunt down ponies worse than you, if you can actually find any? Do you use your magical brute strength to fight monsters? No, you're dancing around with your new best friend, some pathetic charlatan, the only pony who sucks almost as much as you, while-"

"Don't talk about my friend like that!" Glimmer

As if he was catching a sword with two hooves, Silver grabbed Glimmer's face and slammed her into the dirt, cancelling her spell. "NEVER!" He screamed, lifting her up and slamming her down again, face first. "INTERRUPT! ME!" He shouted, punching her hard where her jaw met the upper part of her head.

"Now," Silver said in a calmer manner, "As I was SAYING... No, you're dancing around with your new best friend, some pathetic charlatan, the only pony who sucks almost as much as you, while disappointing the only pony on the planet too optimistic and idealistic to see when a criminal needs to answer for everything she's done, AND too powerful and beloved for the silent majority to feel like it's time to call her out on that blatant favouritism. The universe made it easy for you, because you're an Outlier. The universe loves you so much, it will warp its own reality to drop tailor-made problems in your lap for you to solve, threatening its own operational stability in the process, and you STILL can't redeem yourself! Because you don't want to redeem yourself! You just expect forgiveness from everypony, because you're used to getting it. I'm tempted to wrap your horn in cold iron and just portal you into one of the MANY, MANY towns where you're considered an outlaw and wanted dead or alive. Better yet, forget the metal. I could kick you through a portal fourty feet in the air, hogtied, horn cracked and covered in mud, and nopony would guess that Silver Star had anything to do with it."

A metal dome of steel slammed down over both of them, and his horn lit up. He sat on his haunches, grabbed her horn with a hoof, ignited his horn, grabbed her teeth with his magic, and forced her jaw down while holding her head still, and his eyes stared into hers, cracks starting to form along her teeth. "You've crossed a line. You and your plans for putting this world beneath your hoof, and destroying it if you can't have it... you've crossed lines you can never uncross. And if you ever try to lie to anypony about what happened here, if you EVER try to selectively omit information to LIE about how much you deserved this, you'll have to tell them that you tried to take my Cutie Mark away from me, and you'll have to admit to everypony that you haven't changed at all. You aren't sorry for your crimes, and you're not even trying to make up for them. You're sorry for getting caught. The _very second_ you thought you met somepony as vile as you, you _laughed_ about your crimes, like they were _something to be proud of_. And you did it again, when you met me! Do you know what's something to be proud of? Leaving stability where you found anarchy. Uplifting a civilization of animals into sentient beings where that isn't illegal, so you can build a long-lasting empire where it'll never become illegal. Starting with nothing, and taking everything from those who didn't deserve it. Not just becoming one of the most influential ponies in the world, but using it to help the world wherever it's needed."

Glimmer couldn't respond, and her terrified eyes begged him to stop.

"Do you see, Glimmer? If you tell anypony about what happened here today, you'll have to admit that you're a monster. And a monster like you... I could send you to an underground facility in another world, where statues that used to be monsters are repurposed for the good of Equestria and used as batteries. I could transform you into a monster incapable of speech, coated in uncontrollable tentacles, nerve endings enhanced to make every spell and arrow thrown your way hurt even more than today, and I could claim you did this to yourself to gain more power because your unstable foal mind couldn't handle being told you were wrong. I could say that when I smacked you in the face again and again with cold, hard reality, you snapped. Ponies would believe me. I could claim you tried to blow yourself up to kill me after I gave you the upcoming ultimatum, but I was a Silver Replica the entire time, and the real me was watching somepony with barely ten percent of my strength use strategy to beat you down while eating from a bowl of summoned popcorn until I saw you blow up and leave nothing behind but a small crater. Or I could just take you to the nearest Changeling nest and watch you meet the fate you would have eventually forced upon everypony in Equestria. But you don't want to live in those alternate timelines, do you? You'd much rather be more than a monster that gets eaten by a bigger and better hero who eats monsters, right?"

He nodded her head. She didn't nod her head, he moved her head like she was a puppet in his hooves.

"Good girl." He said condescendingly. "Maybe there's a place for you in this world, after all. Maybe you'll find other, more constructive uses for your horn's strength and your Cutie Mark talent for negative magic. I can hook you up with some contacts, I know a group of Unicorns that owes me favours. Maybe you can find some friends and help them with their lives. Maybe you can start a career as a magical duellist. I'm sure that wrestling-inspired one would love a new villain to hate. But whether a mare like you has a place in this world or not, I do know that it isn't here, in this town, hurting these ponies. Got it?"

She blinked in shock, and two Silvers grabbed her from behind, holding her still. The one on the left cast a spell in a blue flash of magic, removing her damage-redirecting spell.

Hoof glowing with a dangerous orange light, Silver punched her in the face so hard, he punched the highlights out of her hair and punched the stolen magic out of her body. He summoned an orange crystal chunk to store the violently-swirling rainbow ball of stolen magical energies that flew out of her back. He noticed that the seemingly-sentient magical energy had dragged some of her magical energy out with it, and he stored that with the rest, and dismissed the crystal in a flash of blue light, leaving behind Starlight Glimmer, who was now weaker than she'd ever been before.

Suddenly, those two Silver Spares went from restraining the mare to holding her up. Their horns lit up, transferring magic to the Silver that stood before Glimmer, giving the magical might needed to cast a spell that was normally far, far out of the businesspony's league.

"Final Sentence," Silver spoke aloud, his horn glowing and firing a laser beam that painfully burned and painted a black copy of his Cutie Mark between her eyes and around her horn. "This spell will prevent you from breaking any of the seven rules I'm about to set up. If you try, I'll know, and I'll make what this Curse will do to you until I track you through the sound of your soul's screams look like a reward. Rule One: You will not harm an innocent pony ever again, or, through inaction, allow an innocent pony to come to harm. Rule Two: You will not cast a spell on another innocent pony, or do anything to an innocent pony, without that pony's clearly-stated consent. Rule Three: You will never lie again. Lies through omission, lies through grammar tricks and that 'Exact Words' nonsense, and half-truths are also forbidden. From now on, you can only tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Four, you will never seek to act against me, or the ponies of this world ever again. You can not attack Silver Star, Twilight Sparkle, or any other innocent pony. Five, you will never return to this dimension again. Six, you will never say anything good about your worthless and debunked Marksist ideology again. It's evil, like you, and it should be recognized as such by all. And Seven, you will become a good pony. You WILL spend every second of every minute of every day trying to improve the lives of other ponies in ethical and logical ways sentient life forms consent to, and you WILL repair the damage you've done to this universe's alternate timelines and others, and make up for it in my eyes. And now, for a designated Escape Clause: This Curse can only be broken through the Power Of Completion. Only when you have fixed every bad parallel universe, bad alternate timeline, and bad alternate world in the infinite multiverse can you rest. This is my Final Sentence, Starlight Glimmer."

"The Sentence Is Witnessed!" The two Silver Spares holding her up spoke in unison, their horns flashing to add their own magical signatures to her black mark, and with that, it faded away.

The main Silver leaned close to her face, and whispered as his horn started to ignite once again, his copies matching his light. "If I ever see you again, nopony will ever see you again. Get out of my town, get out of my country, and get off my planet."

A blue portal opened up behind her, to a bleak world of drab greys and ponies fighting on a miserable mountainous battlefield under a sky coated in black clouds, and he forcefully spun her around, forcing her to look at it.

"You see that?" The Silver on the left whispered in her ear. "That's one of the realities you ruined for everypony, out of petty spite."

"You're going to go through each one, and fix each dimension." The Silver at her right ear explained. "Not your way, with mindless brute force, but the good way. The Pony way. And as soon as you step through that portal, your Curse will activate."

"Consider this the first day of your quest to redeem yourself in my eyes, the only eyes you have to care about from now on," The main Silver finished, and he walked away, like she was nothing more than mere garbage left to rot and decay in the sun. His clones vanished.

A hole opened itself up in his metal dome for him, allowing him to leave, and Glimmer stood there, shaking.

She thought he was going to throw her in. Or even kick her in.

But instead, he just left her there.

She turned and watched him leave, shaking, crying, and mentally breaking.

What was he thinking? Didn't he realize that if his Final Sentence only activated once she left this universe, nothing was stopping her from remaining in it?

She could violate every law he set for her. Every rule, and every limit.

And she could have revenge.

Or, she could turn around, walk through that portal, and try to fix the messes she'd made.

She could accept a lifetime of penance, or try and get revenge.

A lifetime of rules and suffering and stuffy good-guy nonsense, or revenge.

Yeah. Glimmer knew what she was doing today.

The spell took longer to charge, and it was so, so much harder to cast with her new, weaker power level, but there was no way she would just let Silver walk away after what he'd done to her.

Even as the magical energies burned inside her, like red-hot vomit rising through her body and pooling within her damaged horn, she kept charging, and when her rage and hatred were at their peaks, she threw away the last of her energy and fired, right at the seemingly unaware Silver.

He sensed the magic beam, and turned around, absolutely furious. "GLIIIIIIIIIIIIMMEEEEEEEEEEEEER!" He roared, unleashing a beam of his own from his horn, a 120mm-wide column of blue energy that overwhelmed her magical beam and blasted her own energy, and his, into her, engulfing her and knocking her through his portal.

The portal sealed up, the metal dome vanished in a flash of blue magic, and he sighed. He was sweaty, exhausted, and gasping for air, and he collapsed.

"Wow, that was an ordeal," He groaned.

As he caught his breath, and allowed his elevated heart rate to return to normal, he thought about the gem, the orange gem. His gem. The gem of Silver Star. The gem that now, thanks to him, contained an absurd level of magical energy. Energy he'd stolen from Starlight Glimmer, who stole it from ponies she'd... devoured. Yes, that was a good way to put it. Her ideology was like a vicious, rabid, predatory animal, feigning weakness until you showed weakness, and then, it would strike, and kill you, or weaken you and your country so some other monster could. It infected others, when it snapped, too.

He thought of the stuff he'd said to Glimmer, about how good ponies with lots of money can do good things for the world.

He was a good pony, with a lot of money. And he was thinking of setting up a hotel in this town, just to prove that he could.

But power...

Glimmer had been stronger than him. And if he hadn't purposefully dominated her for so much of that match, she might have ripped his Cutie Mark away. She almost came close to doing that, at one point, after all.

So... he'd beaten Glimmer, both literally and metaphorically, and kicked her out of his universe. He would never see her again, unless he ran into her during some multiversal adventure.

Could she turn her life around? He doubted it, but he'd been wrong about assuming the worst in ponies before.

Then again, that pony hadn't been anywhere near as evil as Starlight Glimmer.

She was a monster.

A monster he defeated.

And that gem, the orange gem, his gem, the gem of Silver Star...

The gem that now, thanks to him, contained an absurd level of magical energy, energy he'd stolen from Starlight Glimmer, who stole it from ponies she'd killed and plundered dry. So dry that they turned to dust when she was done with them.

Was this fate? Was that gem, and the boost to his magic it could provide, his reward for ridding this world of another monster?

Part of him wanted to bring that gem back out and absorb the magic from it, and put it to better use than Glimmer ever did. With that kind of power, he could defeat Twilight Sparkle, if he had to. He could also use it to defeat evil versions of Twilight Sparkle he encountered in alternate universes through sheer power, instead of having to cheat them out of fair fights with trickery and underhanded gimmicks.

He'd helped himself to the 'Spoils of war' before, when taking down rich, corrupt monsters. And he had quite the collection of Villain Cards.

So... Why did some strange and strong part of him feel so disgusted at the idea of taking the magical energies from that gem?

If he became stronger, he could take on stronger foes he'd been forced to overlook and save for later, elsewhere in the multiverse. If he became stronger, he could do good more often... right?

So why did the idea of getting stronger in that way feel so wrong?

Horn lighting up, he summoned something.

A black can of some orange energy drink, which he opened and gulped down on the spot.

When the dangerously potent mixture of energy potion and vitamin-laced caffeine-infused sugar-filled drink infused his body with energy, he screamed in exhilaration.

Better. That definitely made him feel better. He dismissed the can, but...

He kept thinking.

If he wasn't going to absorb the magic from that gemstone, what could he do with it? He couldn't just put it on a shelf somewhere in his pocket dimension as a trophy of his victory. If he put it there, it would just gather dust forever, the spirits and wishes and everything else that made up a pony's magic trapped within it screaming silently for the rest of eternity.

Perhaps...

Perhaps there was another way.

Some way to use that gemstone, not for personal gain, or for personal gain that would help others, but for some other purpose. Something that would universally benefit all good ponies in Equestria.

He just had to figure out what it was.

And he was quite sure that, given enough time, he'd think of something great.

After all, he was a genius. One whose genius was enhanced with hard work.

That's what he believed, anyway.

With that settled, he got back up, and trotted back to the party.

Along the way, he formed a Silver Spare, who teleported himself outside of the barn to grab the Outlier status he'd punched out of Glimmer, absorb it with an orange gem, send it back to their pocket dimension, and vanish. And another Silver Spare, who teleported over to Twilight's house, to deliver a certain something.

When he returned, he saw every pony in town besides himself and Twilight waiting outside the barn, staring at him.

They'd watched the fight, he realized.

Silver decided to end the Mind Magic he'd cast on everypony to stop them from stopping his fight with Glimmer.

And as soon as he did that, the atmosphere changed.

A cheer erupted from the crowd as they ran over to him and lifted him into the air, and lifted others into the air so they could lift him higher, and every pony celebrated, except for one.

Trixie was left behind, all alone in the corner, and she was quietly looking down, thinking clearly for the first time in what felt like forever.

* * *

"Hey, guys!" A Silver Spare shouted into a blue megaphone he summoned, stopping the herd of Spares as they magically reconstructed Twilight's home. "I just got something we can use for the house!"

"You what?" The Silver Spare closest to the aforementioned spare asked.

Wanting to keep it a secret to everypony besides himself, the Silver Spare formed another Spare through magic, and then, that copy bit his own tongue, vanishing in a puff of magic and giving all of them the knowledge and memories of the Silver Spare currently smiling at all of them, who was charging up magic for a summoning spell.

Many Silvers murmured "That'll work"s and "We could do that"s, but one groaned openly.

"Great, so much for putting an open-air hot tub in the crystal tree's leaves and making it look like a bird's nest on the outside," He grumbled.

"Don't our plans already include a hot tub room?" Silver asked.

"Yeah, but this one would be open-air, and that's way cooler!" Silver insisted. "Now we'll have to put it above her house somehow. Maybe mounted into an invisible magically-hardened cloud, enchanted to sustain an illusion spell around the hot tub."

"What if we rigged the place to work as a weather-controller? Then the cloud wouldn't look so out-of-place."

"If we've got some spare magic left over, let's make that an optional feature."

"Good idea!" Silver agreed. "Twilight is going to love what I've done with this place! Quick, somepony, summon a camera, I want to record her when she sees it."


End file.
